: 231 

J4 
opy 1 



•■iiiiiiiirrr 



DEPARTMENT OF THE'iNTERIOR 
BUREAU OF EDUCATION 



BULLETIN. 1918. No. 



A COMMUNITY CENTER 

WHAT IT IS AND 
HOW TO ORGANIZE IT 



HENRY E. JACKSON 

SPECIAL ACSENT IN COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION 




WASHINGTON 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFHCE 

1918 



.T 






BtJLIETIN OF THE BTTREAtT OF EDTJCATION. 

Note, — With the exceptions Indicated, the documents named below will be sent free 
of charge upon application to the Comnjissioher of Education, Washington, D. C. Those 
marked with an asterisk (*) are no longer available for free distribution, but may be 
had of the Superintendent of Documents, Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C, 
upon payment of the price stated. Remittances should be made in coin, currency, or 
money order. Stamps are not accepted, 

A complete list of arailable publications will be sent upon application. 

1917. 

*No. 1. Monthly record of current educational publications, January, 1917. 

5 cts. 
*^No. 2. Reorganization of Englisli in secondary scliools. A i-eport of tbe Com- 
mission on Secondai'y Education, James F. Hosic. 20 cts, 
'■-No. S. Pine-needle basketry in scliools. William C. A. Hammel. 5 cts. 

No, 4. Secondary agricultural schools in Russia. W. S. Jesieu. , 

*No. 5. Report of an inquiry Into the administration and support of the Colo- 
rado school system, Katherine M. Cooli. and A. C. Monahan. 10 cts. 

No. 6. Educative and economic possibilities of school-directed home gardening 
in Riclimond, Ind. J.L.Randall. 

No. 7, Monthly record of current educational publications, February, 1917. 

No. 8. Current practice in city. school administration. W. S. Deffenbaugh. 

No. 9. Department-store education. Helen R, Norton. 

No. 10. Developmfent of aritlimetlc as a school subject. W. S. Monroe. 
*No. 11. Higher technical education in foreign countries. A. T. Smith and 
W. S. Jesien. 20 cts. 

No. 12. Monthly record of current educational publications, March, 1917. 

No. 13. Monthly record of current educational publications, April, 1917. 

No. 14. A graphic survey of book publication, 1890-1916. F. E. Woodward. 

No. 15. Studies in higher education in Ireland and Whales. • Geo. E. MacLean. 

No. 16. Studies In liigher education in England and Scotland. Geo. E. Mac- 
Lean. 

No. 17. Accredited higher institutions. S. P. Capen. 
*No. 18. History of public school education in Delaware. S. B. Weeks. 20 cts. 

No. 19. Report of a survey of the University of Nevada. 

No. 20. Activities of school children in out-of-sehool hours. 0. D. Jarvi^ 

No. 21, Monthly record of current educational publications, May, 1917. 

No. 22. Money value of education. A. 0. Ellis. 
*No. 23. Three short courses in home making. Carrie A. Lyford. 15 cts. 

No. 24. Monthly record of current educational publications-— Index, February, 
1916-January, 1917. 

No. 25. Military training of youths of school age in foreign countries. 
W. S. Jesien. 

No. 26. Garden clubs In the schools of Englewood, N. J. Charles O. Smith. 

No, 27. Training of teachers of mathematics for secondary schools. R. C. Arch- 
ibald. 

No. 28. Monthly record of current educational publications, June, 1917. 

No. 29, Practice teaching for secondary school teachers. A, R. Mead. 

No. 30. School extension statistics, 1915-16. Clarence A. Perry. 

No. 31. Rural-teacher preparation in county training schools and high schools. 
H. W. Foght, 

No. 32. Work of the Bureau of Education for the natives of Alaska, 1915-16. 

No, 33. A comparison of the salaries of rural and urban superintendents of 
schools. A. C. Monahan and C. H. Dye. 

[Continued on page- 3 of cover.] 



BUREAU OF EDUCATION. BULLETIN, 1918, NO. 11 PLATE 1. 




THE TWO AMBITIONS. 
Frank F. Stone. See page 42. 



DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR 

BUREAU OF EDUCATION 



BULLETIN, 1918, No. 



A COMMUNITY CENTER 

WHAT IT IS AND 
HOW TO ORGANIZE IT 



BY 

HENRY E. JACKSON 

SPECIAL AGENT IN COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION 




WASHINGTON 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFHCE 

1918 



■ iT-f 



ADDITIONAL COPIES 

OF THIS PTreLICATION MAY BE PROCUSED FROM 

THE SOTEEINTENDENT OF DOCITMENTS 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING QFFICB 

■WASHINGTON, D. C. 

AT . 

10 CENTS PEE COPY 

D^ of D« 



^ 

^ 



CONTENTS. 



Page. 

Letter of transmittal 5 

The President's letter 7 

Foreword 8 

Part I — What is a Community Center? H 

The people's university 11 

The community capitol 12 

The community forum 13 

The neighborhood club 11 

The home and school league 16 

The community bank IS 

The cooperative exchange 21 

The child's right of way 22 

Part II — ^How to Organize a Community Center 24 

A little democracy 24 

Membership in America 25 

The community secretary 2G 

The board of directors 28 

The trouble committee 30 

Public and self support 31 

A working constitution 83 

Decrease of organizations 3."i 

The house of the people 38 

Free trade in friendship 42 

Part III — A Suggested Constitution . 47 



"A system of general instruction, which shall reach 
every description of our citizens, from the richest to the 
poorest, as it was the earliest, so it shall be the latest of 
all the public concerns in which I shall permit myself to 
take an interest." 

Thomas Jefferson. 
4 



LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL. 



Department of the Interior, 

Bureau of Education, 
Washington^ February 19^ 1918. 

Sir : To make more valuable to the people those things from which 
the people are accustomed to derive value has very appropriately 
been said to be the prime business of legislators. That the school- 
house, whose value to the people is already great, may become still 
more valuable to them, is the purpose of the community-organiza- 
tion movement which this bureau has undertaken to foster. 

A great democracy like ours, extending over more than three and 
one-half million square miles of territory and including more than 
100,000,000 people, must be alive, intelligent, and virtuous in all 
its parts. Every unit of it must be democratic. The ultimate unit 
in every State, Territory, and possession of the United States is 
the school district. Every school district should therefore be a little 
democracy, and the schoolhouse should be the community capitol. 
Here the people should meet to discuss among themselves their com- 
mon interests and to devise methods of helpful cooperation. It 
should also be the social center of the community, where all the people 
come together in a neighborly way on terms of democratic equality, 
learn to know each other, and extend and enrich their community 
sympathies. 

For this purpose the schoolhouse is specially fitted; it is nonsec- 
tarian and nonpartisan; the property of no ijidividual, group, or 
clique, but the common property of all; the one place in every com- 
munity in which all have equal rights and all are equally at home. 
The schoolhouse is also made sacred to every family and to the com- 
munity as a whole by the fact that it is the home of their children 
and the training place of future citizens. Here all members of the 
community may appropriately send themselves to school to each other 
and learn from each other of things pertaining to the life of the local 
community, the State, the Nation, and the world. 

The appropriation of the schoolhouse for community uses has 
well been called " a master stroke of the new democracy." These 
facts are not new, but the emphasis on their importance is new and 

5 



6 LETTER OF TEANSMITTAL. 

amounts to a new discovery. The Nation's immediate need to mo- 
bilize the sentiments of the people and to make available the material 
resources has directed special attention to the schoolhouse as an. 
effective agency ready-made to its hand for this purpose. The na- 
tional importance of this new organization is evidenced by the fact 
that the Council of National Defense has planned a nation-wide 
movement to organize school districts or similar communities of the 
United States as the ultimate branches of its council of defense sys- 
tem, believing that the organization of communities will enable the 
Council of National Defense to put directly before the individual 
citizen the needs of the Nation, to create and unify their sentiment, 
and to mobilize and direct their efforts for the defense of the Nation. 

In order that this organization may be most effective and be made 
permanent, the council has expressed a desire to cooperate with the 
Bureau of Education, and I have detailed one of the specialists in 
community organization to cooperate with the council for the accom- 
plishment of our common purpose. That the people may have in- 
formation in regard to community organization in its simplest form, 
I recommend that the manuscript transmitted herewith be published 
as a bulletin of the Bureau of Education. It has been prepared at 
my request by Dr. Henry E. Jackson, the bureau's special agent in 
community organization. 

EespectfuUy submitted. 

P. P. Claxtok, 

Commissioner. 

The Secretary of the Interior. 



Your State, in extending its national defense organization by 
the creation of communitj councils, is in my opinion making an ad- 
vance of vital significance. It will, I believe, result when thoroughly 
carried out in welding the Nation together as no nation of great 
size has been welded before. It will build up from the bottom an 
understanding and sympathy and unity of purpose and eifort which 
will no doubt have an immediate and decisive ejffect upon our great 
undertaking. You will find it, I think, not so much a new task as 
a unification of existing efforts, a fusion of energies now too much 
scattered and at times somewhat confused into one harmonious and 
effective power. 

It is only by extending your organization to small communities 
that every citizen of the State can be reached and touched with the 
inspiration of the common cause. The schoolhouse has been sug- 
gested as an apt though not essential center for your local council. 
It symbolizes one of the first fruits of such an organization, namely, 
the spreading of the realization of the great truth that it is each 
one of us as an individual citizen upon whom rests the ultimatei 
responsibility. Through this great organization we will express with 
added emphasis our will to win and our confidence in the utter 
righteousness of our purpose. 

WOODSOAV WlLS03f« 

The White House, 

March 13, WIS. 
{Letter to cliairmen of -Stat-e Councils of Defense.] 

7 



FOREWORD. 



The challenge of the World War to all thoughtful people is to 
organize human life on saner and juster lines in the construction of 
a better sort of world. This bulletin aims to make a suggestion 
toward an answer to this challenge. 

The sorrow and tragedy of the war cause men and women every- 
where to ask themselves not only what sort of a world they ought to 
work for, but also how and where -they can begin to work for it. 
To find a practical answer to these questions is the persistent prayer 
of all who believe in democracy. Honest prayer is the expression of 
a dominant desire for what we believe is best and also the willingness 
to cooperate in bringing it to pass. The following pages are ad- 
dressed to those who are willing to cooperate in answering their own 
prayers, to those who know what sort of world they ought to work 
for but are at a loss to know what is the best instrument to be used 
for constructing it. This bulletin suggests such an instrument. 

It is a curious fact that usually it is comparatively easy to interest 
ten men in an indefinite scheme about which they have nothing to 
do but talk, whereas it is difficult to induce one man to undertake a 
more modest but definite piece of constructive work. But the war 
has awakened the desire of all people of good will to do something. 
They want to make a motor-reaction to the war's challenge. They 
say : " We see what needs to be done. What is the best instrument 
with which to do it ? That is the difficult thing to find." The 
suggestion here made is intended for such people, who have dis- 
covered the futility of attempting to purify the water in a well by 
painting the pump, and who therefore seek a constructive plan in 
the process of building a better world. 

The instrument here suggested is The Community Center, which 
may be put into operation anywhere, in city, village, or countryside. 
If we desire to get anywhere, we have to start from somewhere. The 
place to start from is where we are. The best point of contact with 
the world problem, raised anew by the war, is to be found in the 
community where we live, for the world problem exists in every 
community in America. All political questions, if considered funda- 
mentally, will be found to apply to human 'needs which are at once 
8 



FOEEWOED. 9 

local, national, and international. The international problem is now, 
and has always been, how to organize and keep organized a method 
of mutual understanding by which nations may cooperate rather 
than compete with each other. The national problem is to do the 
same for the social and economic forces within the Nation itself. 
The problem in any local community is to do the same for the forces 
operating in that community. With reference to this present and 
permanent world problem the writer has attempted to answer two 
questions — ^what is a community center, and how ought it to be organ- 
ized. He has endeavored to make the answer as brief as may bo 
consistent with clearness. 

Our three most urgent national needs are to mobilize intelligence, 
food, and money. But it is not possible to mobilize them until w© 
first mobilize the people. The Nation's present need has made appar- 
ent the necessity of organizing local communities. The Council of 
National Defense discovered it through its experience in the war. 
The Bureau of Education had begun the task before we entered the 
war. These two organizations have now united their forces for the 
accomplishment of their common purpose to promote community 
organization throughout the Nation. The slogan of the one is, " Every 
school district a community council for national service." The 
slogan of the other is, " Every schoolhouse a community capitol and 
every community a little democracy." 

President Wilson has clearly indicated the profound significance of 
this movement in the letter he wrote to commend it. He elsewhere 
says that our present need is " to arouse and inform the people so 
that each individual may be able to play his part intelligently in our 
great struggle for democracy and justice." This is a perfect state- 
ment of the aim of our movement. With the addition of one word it 
would be a complete description of it. That one word is " organize." 
The aim of the movement — to arouse and inform the people, to enable 
each individual to play his part intelligently — can be achieved only 
when the people organize themselves. 

The creation of a democratic and intelligent social order is essen- 
tially the same task, whether our approach to it be local, national, or 
international. This fact has been clearly understood by thinkers as 
far back as Socrates, who said : " Then, without determining as yet 
whether war does good or harm, this much we may affirm, that now 
we have discovered war to be derived from causes which are also 
the causes of almost all the evil in States, private as well as public." 
Anyone, therefore, who attempts to remove these causes in a local 
community is working at a world problem, and he who attempts to 
remove them as between nations is obliged, in order to preserve his 
honesty and self-respect, to make the same effort within his own 
49129—18 2 



10 FOREWORD. 

jiation and in liis own community. It magnifies the value and stimu- 
lates one's zest in working for it to remember that a community 
oenter is the center of concentric circles which compass not only the 
local community but also the larger communities of the Nation and 
the world. To establish free trade in friendship in all three com- 
munities is the goal of the community center movement. 

Henkt E. Jackson. 
Febeitary h 1918. 



A COMMUNITY CENTER-WHAT IT IS AND HOW 
TO ORGANIZE IT. 



PART I. 



WHAT IS A COMMUNITY CENTER? 



THE PEOPLE'S UNIVERSITY. 

"All men naturally desire knowledge," is the buoyant sentence 
with which Aristotle begins his great book on Ethics. It states 
our ground of hope for the possibility of progress and for the suc- 
cess of democracy. No democratic form of government can long 
endure without popular education or the means of acquiring it. 
The first and chief aim of the community center movement is to 
deepen the content and broaden the scope of the term " education " 
and to extend the activities of the public schools so that they may 
evolve into people's universities. 

When it is remembered that only 10 per cent of the adult citizens 
have had a high-school education and only 50 per cent have ever 
completed the grammar grades, it becomes apparent that one of our 
greatest national needs is a university for the education of grown 
men and women. The public school as a community center is the 
answer to this national need. The community center movement 
recognizes the fact that the mind matures more slowly than the 
hodj and that education is a life-long process. While the public 
school is dedicated primarily to the welfare of the child, it is be- 
coming daily more evident that the Nation's welfare requires it to 
be used for adults and youths as well. Notwithstanding the fact 
that it is our finest American invention and the most successful 
social enterprise ever undertaken, its golden age lies before it. It 
is now being discovered anew in its possibilities for larger public 
service. The fact that all men naturally desire knowledge is the 
fact which has justified the investment of $1,347,000,000 in the public- 
school equipment ; it is the fact which now justifies the use of this 

11 



12 A COMM"Lr]SriTY CENTER. 

equipment by adults. In every part of the country there is a mani- 
fest tendency for the public school to develop into a house of the 
people to be used by them for "mutual aid in self- development." 
This is the significant fact at the heart of the community center 
movement and the touchstone of its value for the national welfare. 

THE COMMUNITY CAPITOL. 

"The vralls of Sparta are built of Spartans," sang an old poet. 
The walls of America likewise are built of Americans. The primary 
function of the public schools is to make, not merely good men and 
women, but good citizens for the Eepublic. From the standpoint of 
citizenship, therefore, every schoolhouse ought to be used as a polling 
place. This is the first logical step toward mxaking it the community 
capitol, although it may not be the first step chronologically. This 
use of the schoolhouse would save every State many thousands of 
dollars each year. When the people already own these houses, con- 
veniently distributed in every section of the country, why should 
public funds be wasted in rent for other buildings? But economy, 
while a sufficient, is not the chief reason for m.aking the schoolhouse 
a polling place. The best reason is the ideal for which the ballot 
box stands. It is the symbol of citizenship in America. As such it 
deserves a worthy place. In the last presidential election. President 
Wilson voted in a fire-engine house in Princeton, and Candidate 
Hughes voted in a laundry in New York City. Hitherto any kind 
of a place has been considered fit for the highest act of citizenship. 

In the Hebrew republic the symbol of the nation was a small richly 
decorated box called the "Ark of the Covenant." It was kept in the 
most honored place in the national Temple at the capital. The corre- 
sponding emblem in the American Eepublic is the ballot box. It 
ought to occupy a place befitting its importance. The one fitting 
place is the public schoolhouse, the community capitol and the temple 
of American democracy. Moreover, the voting instrument, wdiich is 
the chief national emblem in every democracy, should be constructed 
with architectural dignity and established permanently in the school- 
house, because of the ideals it embodies and the supreme function it 
serves. It would thus be a perpetual reminder that the function of 
the school is to make citizens for the Republic. It would cause the 
question repeatedly to be asked. What kind of school subjects are 
best calculated to make good citizens? It would help to keep the 
curriculum vitalized, by connecting it with practical and national 
processes. 

It can continue to be vital only by the continued process of adapt- 
ing itself to meet the Nation's expanding needs. A fixed curriculum 
is a false curriculum. The significant fact about a school is not the 



WHAT IS A COMMIIlSriTY CENTER? 13 

condition in wliich it is, but the direction in which it is moving. It's 
only safety, like that of an individual, lies in moving on. It will be 
stimulated to move on by making the practice of citizenship to be its 
goal. A constant reminder of the practice of citizenship is the pres- 
ence of the polling instrument in the school. 

THE COMMUNITY FORUM. 

It may or it may not have been a mistake to have granted suffrage 
to the average man. An educational and character qualification for 
voting may now be the wiser policy to pursue in regard to both men 
and women, for no man is fit to govern another unless he has suffi- 
cient self-control to govern himself, and yet no man, however intel- 
ligent, can be trusted to govern another man without his consent. At 
any rate, universal manhood suffrage is the present fact, and nothing 
is so convincing as a fact. Inasmuch as the right to vote on public 
policies is now in the hands of the average man, it is of paramount 
importance that he should be given the opportunity to make himself 
fit to perform this function intelligentl3^ This is the necessity on 
VN-hich the community forum fundamentally rests. It is a school for 
citizenship. 

The community forum is the meeting of citizens in their school- 
house for the courteous and orderly discussion of all questions which 
concern their common welfare. A community may begin with ques- 
tions in which local interest is manifest, such as good roads, or public 
health, or the method of raising and spending public funds, or 
methods of production and transportation of food products. A dis- 
cussion of these questions will reveal at once the fact that they 
transcend local limits. A road is built to go somewhere, and it will 
relate one community to another. Local health conditions can not 
be maintained without considering other localities, for the causes of 
local disease frequently lie elsewhere. 

A local community pays part of the revenue raised by the county. 
The expenditure of these funds, therefore, is the affair of the local 
community. The same is true of the administration of State funds. 
The question of production and transportation is no longer regarded 
as a rural problem or a city problem, but a national problem. The 
reason why no community should live for itself is because none exists 
by itself. Every community is at the center of several concentric cir- 
cles. The subjects of most value for discussion in a local forum are 
those which connect it with county. State, and National interests. 
And herein lies the educational value of the forum. 

One of the folk high schools of Denmark maintains a regular study 
called "A Window in the West," the purpose of which is to acquire 
new ideas from England and America, that Denmark may use them 



14 A COMMUNITY CENTEK. 

for its own improvement. Such a course should be in the curriculmn 
of every public school. The aim of the forum is to put a new window 
into the mental outlook of every community. The value of an open 
mind can not be calculated. Every great leader of the world's 
thought and action has insisted on its indispensable importance. 
Confucius expressed it in the golden phrase " mental hospitality." 
Socrates used a phrase out of which was coined the word " phil- 
osopher." He said, " I am not a wise man ; I am a lover of wisdom, 
the spirit of truth." So highly did he regard it that he called it a 
holy spirit. The reason why these masterful leaders of men so 
prized the habit of being open-minded is because they understood 
that without mental hospitality no progress in any line is possible. 

Ours is a Government by public opinion. It is obvious that the 
public welfare requires that public opinion be informed and educated. 
The forum is an instrument fitted to meet the most urgent public 
need. It is organized not on the basis of agreement, but of difference. 
It aims not at uniformity, but unity. It would be a stupid and un- 
progressive world if all were forced to think alike. We are under 
no obligation to agree with each other, but as neighbors and as mem- 
bers of America it is our moral and patriotic duty to make the at- 
tempt to understand each other. 

Public discussion renders a great variety of services to spiritual 
and social progress. It puts a premium on intelligence, liberates a 
community from useless customs, puts a check on hasty action, secures 
united approval for measures proposed, creates the spirit of toler- 
ance, promotes cooperation, and best of all and hardest of all it equips 
citizens with the ability to differ in opinion without difl'ering in 
feeling. This habit can be acquired only through practice. The 
forum furnishes the means for mutual understanding. It aims to 
create public-mindedness. 

THE NEIGHBORHOOD CLUB. 

The basic assumption of the community center movement is that 
democracy is the organization of society on the basis of friendship. 
" Man is a political animal," said Aristotle. He requires the compan- 
ionship of his fellows. His happiness is largely linked up with their 
approval. His instinctive need for fellowship leads him to create a 
sort of social center out of anything available for the purpose. The 
post office has served as such a village center, but the free delivery 
of mail is destroying its social uses. The corner store has acquired 
fame as an informal forum and neighborly club, but the mail-order 
house is rapidly robbing it of members, and at best it serves only a 
few. The saloon has served the purpose of a neighborhood club and 
friendly meeting place on equal terms for large numbers of men, but 
moral and economic considerations have doomed it to extinction. 



WHAT IS A COMMUJSTITY CEoN'TER'? 15 

The post office, corner store, and saloon are passing as social cen- 
ters, but they must be replaced with something better if they are not 
to be replaced with something worse. For only he can destroy who 
can replace. The public school therefore stands before an open door 
of opportunity to become a neighborhood club, where the people can 
meet on terms which preserve their self-respect. Almost every indi- 
vidual lives in the center of several concentric circles. There is the 
little inner circle of his intellectual and spiritual comrades ; then the 
larger circle of his friends ; beyond that the still larger circle of those 
with whom the business of life brings him into contact; and the 
largest circle of all includes all members of the community as fellow 
citizens. There need be no conflict among these circles, no sugges- 
tion of inferiority or superior itj^ It is never to be forgotten that 
these circles are concentric. The experiences of life make them natu- 
ral and necessary. 

The community center is limited only by this last and largest circle. 
It seeks to broaden the basis of unity among men, to multiply their 
points of contact, to consider those interests which all have in com- 
mon. It is not difficult to discover that these are bigger, both in 
number and importance, than the things which separate men. The 
list of things which can only be achieved as joint enterprises is long. 
Eoads can only be built by community cooperation. Only so can the 
communit^^'s health be safeguarded. Food, clothing, and shelter are 
the common needs of all. Production and transportation are there- 
fore questions of social service. The Greek word for "private," 
peculiar to one's self, unrelated to the interest of others, is the origi- 
nal of our word "idiot." The corresponding modern term in our 
common speech is " crank." The community center is a sure cure for 
" cranks." It aims to promote public-mindedness. 

The schoolhouse used as a neighborhood club renders therefore an 
invaluable public service. It seeks to create the neighborly spirit 
essential for concerted action. The means employed are various^ — 
games, folk dances, dramas, chorus singing — which require the sub- 
ordination of self to cooperative effort, dinner parties, where the 
people break bread in celebration of their communion with each other 
as neighbors. These activities not only render a -service to the indi- 
vidual by promoting his happiness and decreasing his loneliness, 
they discover in the community unsuspected abilities and unused 
resources. To set them to work not only develops the individual but 
enriches the community life. 

The same is true of the spirit of play in general. To cultivate the 
spirit of play not only meets an instinctive human need for physical 
and mental recreation, but renders a distinctive service to democracy 
on account of its spiritual value. One can carry on the work of de- 



16 A COMMUNITY CENTEK. 

struction by himself, but he must organize in order to produce. He 
must cooperate in order to play. He can not monopolize the victory ; 
lie must share it with the team. Play thus develops the spirit of 
sportsmanship, the willingness to play fair, the capacity to be a 
good loser. 

It thus becomes apparent that the neighborhood club furnishes the 
key to the possible solution of a variety of problems — ^the Americani- 
zation problem, for example. The object of the community-center 
movement is to achieve " freemen's citizenship," both for native and 
foreign-born alike. But citizenship means membership. It is obvi- 
ous that the teaching of English to aliens is not sufficient to make 
them members of America. To acquire the language as a means of 
communication with their fellows is, of course, a necessary prelimi- 
nary. But it is only a means to an end. If they are ever to feel 
that they belong with us, the right hand of fellowship must be ex- 
tended to them. The neighborhood spirit alone can create in them 
the spirit of America. One of the by-laws of the constitution of the 
Hebrew republic was to this effect : " Love ye, therefore, the resident 
alien, for ye were resident aliens in the land of Egypt." This law 
does not enjoin citizens to teach them the language of the land. The 
necessity for that is assumed. The chief thing needful, it says, is to 
love them. Friendliness is not only the soul of democracy but also 
the most successful method of securing practical results. The com- 
munity center is the most available and effective instrument through 
which this method can be applied. The process of Americanization 
consists essentially not in learning a language but in acquiring a 
-spirit. 

Cooperation and the spirit of sportsmanship are indispensable 
qualities for citizens of a democracy. The spirit and purpose of a 
neighborhood club are clearly suggested by the significant questions 
asked and answered by a negro bishop of Kansas. " When is a man 
lost ? " he asked. "A man is never lost when he doesn't know where 
he is, for he always knows where he is wherever he is. A man is lost 
when he doesn't know where the other folks are." 

THE HOME AND SCHOOL LEAGUE. 

The free public school is at once the product and safeguard of 
democracy. The kind of iDublic school, therefore, which a com- 
munity has is an accurate index of its community consciousness and 
its estimate of democratic ideals. " The average farmer and rural 
teacher," says T. J. Coates, "think of the rural school as a little equip- 
ment Avhere a little teacher, at a little salary, for a little while, teaches 
little children little things." The object of the home and school 
department of the community center is to substitute the word " big " 



WHAT IS A COMMUNITY CENTER I 17 

for the word " little " in the above statement, to magnify the work 
and function of the school, to make it worthy to occupy a larger place 
in the people's thought and affection. This is the work which Home 
and School Leagues are now doing. The community center in no 
wise interferes with their work. It is not a rival but an ally. Its 
plan is to give to and not to take from the Home and School League. 
Indeed, it is probable that the Home and School League quite gen- 
erally may become the parent organization out of which will be born 
the community center. This is the natural and logical thing to 
happen, and in many places it is the process of development now in 
operation. Wherever this occurs it is against the natural order for 
the mother to be jealous of the daughter. If and when a Home and 
School League expands itself into a community center, it ought to 
become a department of the community organization. 

By becoming a department of a larger organization and limiting 
itself to its own special task, the Home and School League will not 
only do its work better, but it will find it more than sufficient to occupy 
all its time. Its specific work is to promote the progress of the school 
and to improve the school equipment. To this end it seeks to secure 
closer cooperation between the home and school, the parents and 
teachers. When Madam de Stael asked Napoleon what was needed 
to improve the educational system of France, he replied, " Better 
mothers." The noblest influence on any child is that of a good 
mother. Every school, therefore, ought to strive to keep a close bond 
between the home and itself. It ought to do so not only for the sake 
of the children while they are in school but also before they come to 
school and after they leave it. To build battlements around girls and 
boys at the point of their greatest danger, during the period between 
16 and 21, when they are most neglected, is a task worthy in itself 
to enlist the deepest interest and occupy the entire energy of the 
Home and School League. 

The three unsettled questions which schoolmasters are always de- 
bating — the content of the curriculum, the method of teaching, and 
the business management — will be illuminated if there is brought to 
bear upon them the viewpoint of parents who own and support the 
schools and who are interested to get the proper return on their in- 
vestment. The same will be true of all school questions if considered 
from the standpoint of the community center. It will connect school 
activities, with life processes. This means vitality for the school. 
For, as the great educational reformer Grundtvig said, "xA.ny school 
that has its beginning in the alphabet and its ending only in book 
learning is a school of death." 

Inasmuch as the key to a better school is a better teacher, the home 
and school department of the community center will make it its spe- 
49129—18 3 



18 A COMMUNITY CENTEE. 

cial aim to develop tlie type of teacher described in Herbert Quick's 
"Tlie Brown Mouse." It will endeavor to secure for teachers not 
only a larger degree of moral support but more adequate financial 
support, which is not the only thing needful, but the first thing need- 
ful toward the attainment of this goal. The constructive service ren- 
dered to the Republic b}'' public-school teachers is as important, if 
not the most important, rendered by any class of public servants, and 
they are not mercenary or lacking in heroic devotion to the common 
welfare. But it is idle to expect that the right type of teacher can 
be secured or retained without a decent living wage. If Henry Ford 
is able to make $5 the minimum daily wage for the work of producing 
his machines, there is still more justification for fixing this as the 
minimum for the far more delicate and difficult business of making 
citizens for the Nation. Wlien a community offers such a wage, then 
and then only will it be able to secure a $5 type of person for the 
position. In order to retain them after they are secured there ought 
to be a school manse — a teachers' house — as part of the necessary 
equipment of every school. Proper support and housing in order to 
secure the right type of teacher in itself constitutes a worthy program 
for this department. 

The home and school department will naturally have charge of such 
school-extension activities as evening classes for youths and adults. 
These classes should be designed not only as a part of the work 
in the Americanization of immigrants^ but for the better equipment 
of all citizens. " It is the prime business of legislators," said Con- 
fucius, " to make more valuable to the people those things from 
which the people are accustomed to derive value." This states in 
brief the function of the home and school department. The Nation's 
destiny was decided at the beginning by the establishment, for the 
first time in the modern world, of a free public-school system. To 
keep vital its processes and to improve its equipment that it may be 
still more valuable to the people is the chief business of this depart- 
ment. 

THE COMMUNITY BANK. 

The purpose of discussion in a community forum is not entertain- 
ment but action. It is responsible discussion; that is, it is discus- 
sion by citizens who bear the responsibility for voting on the question 
under discussion. Such questions will be many and various. Some 
will have a temporary and some a permanent value. They will nat- 
urally grow out of community-center activities. But in order to 
guarantee that these social recrea^tional and educational activities 
shall be related to life there ought to be established one or two 
departments to meet concrete human needs. 

One of the best of these is a community bank, for it not only meets 
a practical need but also cultivates an ethical view of money and uses 



WHAT IS A COMMUNITY CENTER"? 19 

it as a means of moral culture. A community bank is primarily a 
savings bank both for children and adults. As regards children, it 
ought, so far as possible, to be a part of the curriculum of the school. 
Such banks are now conducted in many schools for children. Coop- 
erative banks are conducted for adults in some States under the 
name of credit unions. New York State has a good law on credit 
unions, on which the laws of other States have been modeled. 

But a real community bank is designed to serve other purposes 
than those of saving. Its aim i^ to multiply the efficiency of the 
people's savings by pooling them for cooperative uses. Its aim is to 
capitalize character and to democratize credit. It serves a com- 
munity use by enabling the people to do jointly what they can not 
do separately. By clubbing their resources they can use their own 
money for their own productive purposes. 

Such a bank, operated for the common welfare, will not only 
furnish the working capital for community enterprises, but will also 
be a loan society. It will make small short-time loans to its members 
on reasonable terms. It will thus become the salvation of the poor 
from the tyramiy and degradation of the loan shark. It will also 
make large long-time loans to young men and women who desire 
to marry and start homes, in order to enable them to become the 
owners of houses. It will permit them to repay the loan on the 
amortization plan. No community could render a more statesman- 
like service to its members. The service already rendered by build- 
ing and loan associations, which are in fact cooperative banks, is a 
guarantee of the success of the plan. There are in the United States 
7,034 such associations, with a membership of 3,568,342, and assets 
amounting to $1,696,707,041. These figures are eloquent and tell a 
significant story. They show how ready is the response of men to 
the opportunity of owning their own houses and that this opportunity 
needs to be vastly extended. The motto of the United States league 
of these associations is "The American Home, the Safeguard of 
American Liberties." The motto is both sentimental and accurately 
true. The well-being of a nation depends primarily upon the exist- 
ence of conditions under which family life may be promoted and 
fostered. The family is the true social unit, older than church or 
»tate and more important than either. The welfare of family life is 
every statesman's chief concern. 

The community bank enters not only a vitally important but a 
practically unoccupied field, and will meet felt needs unmet at 
present. The cooperative handling of credit is not new. It has 
been done in Europe for 50 years with marked success. The com- 
munity bank is the adaptation to American conditions of the 
Eaiffeisen Bank of Germany, the Luzzatti Bank of Italy, and the ' 
Government Bank of New Zealand. It is a democratic bank; that is, 



20 A COMMUNITY CE]!ifTEE. 

it is of the people, in that it receives the people's money; it is 'hy 
the people, in that it is operated by the people themselves ; it is for 
the ijeople, in that the money is used for the welfare of the people 
who saved it. 

A community bank's ability to render these needed public services 
depends wholly on the people's desire and capacity to save and their 
willingness to pool their savings. To cultivate the habit of thrift 
is the first necessity. That America needs to acquire this habit is 
too obvious to need comment. Americans are the least provident of 
peoples. Compared with a list of 14 other nations, the number of 
people out of every thousand who have savings accounts is only about 
one-sixth as many in America as in the nation highest on this list, 
and less than one-half as many as in the nation lowest on the list. 
Switzerland stands highest, with 554. Denmark is next, with 442. 
The lowest is Italy, with 220. But in America it is only 99. 

The economic welfare of a community, however, is not the most 
important' result which the habit of thrift produces. Since money is 
the commonest representative of value and a symbol of the property 
sense, it is the best practical means of moral culture. A community 
bank will furnish the best antidote for the common desire to get 
something for nothing, "the determination of the ownership of 
property by appeal to chance," the habit of gambling, which is dis- 
torting the moral sense of all classes of people. 

The community bank is designed to promote an ethical view of 
money. When we consider that if a man earns $100 for a month's 
labor he has put into this money his physical force, his nervous 
energy, his brain power, that part of his life has been given away 
in return for it, then money becomes a sacred thing. When we 
consider the humiliation and suffering of a destitute old age en- 
tailed by a lack of economy, then the need of thrift assumes a new 
significance. When one considers how manifold are the bearings of 
money on the lives of men, and how many are the virtues with which 
money is mixed up — honesty, justice, generosity, frugality, fore- 
thought, and self-sacrifice — an ethical view of it is unescapable. 

A small competency is necessary to make life what it ought to be 
for every m.an, especially in a democracy. " Wlioever has sixpence," 
said Carlyle, " is sovereign over all to the extent of that sixpence ; 
commands cooks to feed him, philosophers to teach him, kings to 
mount guard over him, to the extent of that sixpence." An assured 
competence, however small, gives the priceless blessing of inde- 
pendence. Not only personal health and happiness but social and 
political independence are involved in a man's saving fund. The kind 
and amount of service which a community bank can render to demo- 
cratic ideals is beyond calculation. 



WHAT IS A COMMUNITY CENTER? 21 

THE COOPERATIVE EXCHANGE. 

The fundamental aim of the community-center movement is to 
secure cooperation for the common welfare. But if cooperation is 
to be anything more than a beautiful dream, there must be coopera- 
tion about something. It must not only be good, but be good for 
something. When the spirit of cooperation has been created, it must 
have an outlet in action, for to stir up the emotions and give them no 
outlet is mere sentimentality and is dangerous to moral health. 

This principle is at once the reason and impulse back of the co- 
operative enterprises now carried on in schools. They assume a 
gpeat variety of forms. Sometimes it is a cooperative creamery and 
cheese factory, which in some rural sections has meant new hope 
and larger resources, not only for the school, but also for the homes 
of the community. Sometimes it is a farmers' club for the purchase 
of farm supplies. It may be a canning club in which the women 
meet in the school to preserve fruits and vegetables and sell them 
at cost, in order to raise funds for community uses, or for the 
national Red Cross. It may be a housekeepers' alliance, in which 
the women meet to exchange ideas as to the best methods of buying 
and preparing foods. In one community center the people have 
agreed to get their milk from one source and to pay for it in ad- 
vance, in order to eliminate the wastes in distribution and receive 
the benefit of the money thus saved. For the successful handling 
of farm products it is essential that they be standardized both in 
form and quality. For this purpose it would be well to use a trade- 
mark or label, which would be of psychological value in suggesting 
teamwork, and also be a guarantee of quality. 

All of these activities are now in the process of being grouped 
together under a buying club, or cooperative exchange, for the or- 
ganization of which there is a rapidly growing demand. The State 
of North Carolina has already passed a law authorizing communi- 
ties to organize them in the schoolhouses. Cooperative buying and 
banking has been operated with notable success for 50 years in Eng- 
land, Denmark, and other countries. It has met little success as yet 
in America, because Americans have been too rich and too individu- 
alistic. There seems to be an obvious need for an intermediate step 
between unlimited competition and the European type of coopera- 
tive society. It seems probable that this need will be supj)lied by 
the buying club. It is not a shop in the English sense, nor a store 
in the modern sense, but a store in the original American sense — 
that is, a storehouse, a distribution station for goods kept in their 
original containers. Indeed, for the most part no goods need to be 
kept in the schoolhouse at all. The schoolhouse is used chiefly for 
the stimulation and formation of plans of operation. 



22 A COMMUNITY CENrER. 

Three things are necessary to success in any practical cooperative 
enterprise — a desire to save, good business sense, and the spirit of 
cooperation; of these the greatest is the last, because cooperation is 
primarily a state of mind ; it is a matter of education. It is signifi- 
cant that the cooperative societies of England not only gave the 
name " society " to their organization, but also devote 2^ per cent 
of their annual profits) to the education of their members in the 
principle and practice of cooperation. 

Thus there grew up in these stores real social-center activities. In 
America social and civic activities are already started in the school- 
houses, and out of them practical cooperation is now developing. 
Our approach is the reverse of the English experience, but the prin- 
ciple is the same. It is highly important to see clearly that the other 
community-center activities are an educational necessity to the suc- 
cess of its practical cooperative enterprises. A buying club unat- 
tached to the means of creating the cooperative spirit is almost sure 
to fail. 

It will save time to recognize at the beginning that to acquire the 
spirit and method of cooperation is a slow process of education. The 
chief danger to be guarded against is the common tendency on the 
part of Americans to demand fruit the day the tree is planted. 
While the spirit of cooperation is difficult to acquire y like all other 
good things, yet it is worth all it costs. Cooperation in buying and 
banking is itself the best of means for moral culture. Its educational 
value is of the highest. It minimizes the evils of debt, cultivates self- 
control and self-reliance, checks reckless expenditure, develops a 
sense of responsibility, quickens intelligence and a public spirit, and 
prepares citizens for self-government in a democratic state. The 
schoolhouse is not only the appropriate place to acquire these educa- 
tional values and cooperative virtues, but it also furnishes the in- 
spiration for success in the process, because the American public 
school is itself the most successful social enterprise yet undertaken 
in this or any other nation. 

THE CHILD'S BIGHT OF WAY. 

It is because there exists in America a marked degree of inde- 
pendence and initiative, and consequently a wide divergence in local 
conditions, that community centers differ widely in the kind and 
number of their activities. While variety in unity is the democratic 
law of development, yet unity in variety is the other half of the same 
law. There are certain kinds of activities required by universal 
human needs. The activities herein described are the typical activi- 
ties adapted to the average normal community, both rural and urban. 
If then one were asked what a community center aims to be, it is a 



WHAT IS A COMMUNITY CENTEEf 23 

sufficiently full and accurate answer to say that it is, what has just 
been briefly described, a people's university, a community capitol, a 
forum, a neighborhood club, a home-and-school league, a community 
bank, and a cooperative exchange. It is all of these in one organiza- 
tion. The unity among them is vital and organic like the unity of 
the fingers in a hand. 

Whatever the number and variety of activities undertaken, the dis- 
tinguishing mark of the community center is the fact that it is or- 
ganized not on the basis of personal pleasure or private profit or any 
political or religious creed, but on the basis of responsibility for the 
welfare of children. The " house of the people " in which it meets is 
the symbol of its central idea. The public school is the only national 
institution primarily dedicated to the welfare of the child. 

Here as nowhere else men and women forget their partisan and 
sectarian divisions and breathe an atmosphere which accentuates 
their resemblances and minimizes their differences. Childhood is 
tlie ground floor of life. It takes us b&neath all superficial and arti- 
ficial distinctions. 

Centuries ago a great statesman and philosopher said that the key 
to any right solution of our social and economic problems is to be 
found by " setting the child in the midst of them." Jesus regarded 
the child as the model citizen in the Kingdom of God, which was 
his term for democracy. The child is still the most respectable citi- 
zen we have. The position of Jesus on the place of the child has 
been shown by John Fiske to be abundantly supported by the bio- 
logical history of the race. The prolonged infancy of the human 
■baby is the factor which developed motherhood and all our altru- 
istic sentiments. And it will be by keeping the child in the midst of 
our thought, by giving the child the right of way in our economics, 
by making the child's welfare the formative principle in our social 
and civic activities that we will transform these activities into com- 
munity interests. 

This the community center aims to do. In brief, it is a movement 
for the extension of the spirit of the home and fireside, the spirit of 
childhood, of good will, of intelligent sympathy, of mutual aid — the 
extension of this spirit to all the activities of the community. The 
indispensable importance of this spirit can not be overemphasized, 
:for without it a community center is a body without a soul, and a 
body without a soul is not a living thing. A community -center^s 
capacity to produce practical results is always to be measured by its 
-capacity to create such a spirit. For, as John Dewey wisely says : 

The chief constituent of social efficiency is intelligent sympathy or good will. 
For sympathy, as a desirable quality, is something more than mere feeling. It 
is a cultivated imagination for what men have in common and a rebellion at 
whatever unnecessarily divides them. 



PAKT IL 

HOW TO ORGANIZE A COMMUNITY CENTER. 



What needs to be done is fairly clear ; how to do it is the difficult 
thing. " If," said the shrewd Portia, " to do were as easy as to know 
what were good to do, chapels had been churches and XDOor men's 
cottages princes' palaces." Nevertheless, to discover how, while diffi- 
cult, is an inspiring task. In the organization of a community center 
the essential factors to be considered are its membership, its size, its 
executive officer, its board of directors, its finances, and its constitu- 
tion. - The suggestions here offered concerning them, together with 
the reasons for the suggestions, are the product of experience and 
have been tested in operation. 

A LITTLE DEMOCRACY. 

The organization of a community around the schoolhouse as its 
capitol is the creation of a new political unit, a little democracy. It 
is new in the sense that it is the revival and enlargement of an old 
institution that we ought not willingly to let die. Thomas Jefferson 
did not exaggerate when he said : 

Those wards called townships in New England are the A-ital principle of their 
governments, and have proved themselves the wisest invention ever devised by 
the wit of ma^n for the perfect exercise of self-government and for its preserva- 
tion. * * * ^g Cato, then, conckided every speech Avith the words, " Carthago 
delenda est," so do I conclude every opinion with the injunction, " Divide the 
counties into Avards." 

The movement to organize local self-governing communities takes 
us back not only to the New England town meeting but still further 
back to the Teutonic "mark," the Eussian " mir," and to the ancient 
Swiss eantonal assembly. The fact that free village cormnunities in 
some form have existed in so many "parts of the world is a significant 
indication of a universal conviction that such organization is a neces- 
sity to human welfare. 

The community center aims to form such a free village community, 
a town, a borough, a little democracy, both in the cities and the open 
24 



HOW TO OEGANIZE A COMMUNITY CENTER. 25 

country. Its capitol, or headquarters, is the schoolhouse, because 
this is the most American institution and the only one suitable for 
the purpose. It alone provides a place where all can meet on equal 
terms of self-respect. It is conveniently distributed in every city, 
town, and village in America. The term " center " applies to the 
schoolhouse, the place of meeting. The term applied to the organiza- 
tion of the people themselves is " community association." 

The first step in organization is to define the boundaries of the 
community. These ought to be determined along natural lines, such 
as the territory from which the children in the school are drawn, or 
a district in which the people come together for other reasons than 
the fact that an artificial line is drawn around them. It ought not 
to be too large. 

Being a little democracy, all adult citizens, both men and wom.en, 
living in the prescribed territory are members of it. It must be 
comprehensive if the public schoolhouse is to be used as its capitol. 
It must be nonpartisan, nonsectarian, and nonexclusive. You do not 
become a member of a community center by joining. You are a 
member by virtue of your citizenship and residence in the district. 
Everywhere else men and women are divided into groups and 
classes on the ground of their personal taste or occupation. In a 
community center they meet as " folks " on the ground of their 
common citizenship and their common human needs. This is the 
distinguishing mark of the community center. 

It is quite true that this democratic ideal is difficult to operate. 
That is nothing against it. All worth-while ideals are difficult. 
Fisher Ames says, "A monarchy is a merchantman which sails well 
but will sometimes strike a rock and go to the bottom, whilst a 
republic is a raft which will never sink, but then your feet are always 
in the water." Let us grant that it may be even hot water, but it is 
quite as true that the very difficulty in operating the democratic ideal 
constitutes its fascination and its worth. When a thing becomes 
easy of accomplishment it loses much, both of its value and its 
interest. 

MEMBERSHIP IN AMERICA. 

It is possible for the form of democracy to exist without its spirit 
and method. The term " community " is not merely " a geographical 
expression." It applies not only to a geographical area, but em- 
bodies an idea. Its real content includes the spirit and method of 
democracy. Unless it promotes this spiritual ideal its meaning is of 
small value. The Century Dictionary quotes the Attorney General 
of the United States as saying, " The phrase, ' a citizen of the United 
States' without addition or qualification means neither more nor 
less than a member of the Nation." 
49129—18 4 



26 A COMMUjSTITY ceeter. 

Membership implies obligation and responsibility. It gives not 
only a new sense of pride, but an intimate feeling of duty to the 
common welfare for a man to say to himself, " I am a member of 
America." To make citizenship mean membership is one of the 
obvious needs in every community. The outstanding characteristic 
of the American Eepublic, which is unlike any other in the world, 
is that it is a double government, a double allegiance. It is a "Re-; 
public of republics." Every citizen feels two loyalties — one to his 
State and the other to his Nation. In addition to these two he feels 
a third loyalty. It is to his local community. And just as every 
man is a better citizen if he is first of all devoted to his own family, 
so will he be more loyal to the State and Nation if he is loyal to his 
own community. 

To induce citizens to recognize their responsibility for the admin- 
istration of public business, to become active members of their own 
communities, to assist in the improvement of local schools, of politics, 
of roads, of the general health, of housing conditions — this is the 
result which the community center aims to achieve. It is the law of 
all improvement that you must start from where you are. If a 
man can not love his own community, which he can see, how can he 
love the whole country, which he can not see ? 

The success of the work in any community depends on the amount 
of public-mindedness existing" there or the possibility of creating it. 
Those who undertake community-center w^ork ought to guard them-' 
selves against the danger of expecting too much at the start. To de- 
velop public-mindedness is a slow and difficult task. It ought never 
to be forgotten that democracy, like liberty, is not an accomplish- 
ment but a growth, not an act but a process. 

It is of the highest importance that this fact should be perceived by 
pioneers in community work, in order that they may not be deceived 
by the passion for size and numbers. A dozen public-minded per- 
sons are sufficient for a beginning. One of the biggest movements 
in history began with a little circle of 12 men. 

They who ha^^e discovered the meaning of democracy do not need 
large immediate results to keep up their courage; they only need a 
cause; and the greatest of all causes is constructive democracy. The 
people will respond when they understand. In the entire history 
of the community-center movement there has never been a time more 
than now when they were so ready to respond. Let no worker in 
any community despise small beginnings. It is always better to 
begin small and grow big than to begin big and grow small. 

THE COMMUNITY SECEETARY. 

Nothing runs itself unless it is running down hill. If community 
work is to be done, somebody has to be the doer of it. The growing 



HOW TO ORGAJSriZE A COMMUIS'ITY CENTER. 27 

realization of this fact has led to the creation of a new profession. 
The term applied to this profession is " community secretary,'' " a 
keeper of secrets," a servant of the whole community. This com- 
munity executive should be elected by ballot in a j)ublic election held 
in the schoolhouse and supported out of public funds. There are 
now four such publicly elected and publicly supported community 
secretaries in Washington, D. C, and eight more such offices are in 
the process of being created. It seems certain that it is destined to 
be one of the most honored and useful of all public offices. Its ideal 
was expressed by the " first real democrat in history," when he said, 
" The kings of the Gentiles are their masters, and those who exercise 
authority over them are called benefactors. With you it is not so; 
but let the greatest among you be as the younger, and the leader be 
like him who serves." 

The qualifications for this office are manifestly large, and its 
duties complex and exacting. The ablest person to be found ig 
none too able. The function of the secretary is nothing less than 
to organize and to keep organized all the conununity activities herein 
described; to assist the people to learn the science and to practice 
the art of living together ; and to show them how they may put into 
effective operation the spirit and method of cooperation. Who is 
equal to a task like this? In addition to intellectual power and a 
large store of general information, one must be equipped with many 
more qualities equally important. The seven cardinal virtues of a 
community secretary are: Patience, unselfishness, a sense of humor, 
a balanced judgment, the ability to differ in opinion without differing 
in feeling, respect for the personality of other people, and faith in 
the good intentions of the average man. When one considers the re- 
quirements for this office, one's first impulse is to do what King 
Solomon did. After niaking a rarely beautiful description of a wise 
and ideal wife, he ended it by asking, " but where can such a woman 
be found?" 

There will be no dearth of able men and women to fill this office, 
when once it is properly created and adequately sup]3orted. For 
there is a particular satisfaction, not otherwise obtainable, to be 
derived from the service of a cause bigger than one's personal in- 
terests. Where possible, the community secretary ought to be the 
principal of the school. But where the principal can not be re- 
leased from his other duties sufficiently to undertake the work, the 
secretary ought to be a person who is agreeable to the principal, in 
order to insure concerted action. In thousands of villages and open- 
country communities the teacher's work lasts for only part of the 
year and the compensation is shamefully inadequate. This is a great 



S8 A COMMUNITY CENTER, 

economic waste as well as an injury to children. If these teachers 
were made community secretaries, were given an all-j^'ear-round job 
and were compensated iqr the additional work by a living wage, it 
would mean a better type of teacher and a better type of school. 
The bigger task would not only demand the bigger person, but the 
task itself would create them. Moreover, when the teacher's activi- 
ties become linked up with life processes the community will be 
the more willing to support the office adequately. It seems clear that 
the office of com^munity secretary is the key to a worthier support 
of the school. It will magnify the function of teaching, give a new 
civic status to the teacher, and make more apparent the patriotic 
and constructive service which the school renders the nation. 

While the demands which this new profession makes m.ay seem 
discouragingly high, nevertheless therein lie its merit and charm. 
" Our reach should exceed our grasp," or thete is no opportunity for 
growth. The position is so big that it can not be outgrown. It is 
worthy of anyone's life-time loyalty. A change to any other vocation 
is not a promotion. A teacher who is a community secretary, or who 
is associated with one in community work, is justified in having the 
same degree of self-respect and exalted regard for the worth of his 
work which was expressed by a great pioneer in the same field, 
Pestalozzi. At one period of his career, he went to Paris, and a 
friend endeavored to present him to Napoleon the Great. Napoleon 
declined. " I have no time for A. B. C," he said. When Pestalozzi 
returned to his home his friends asked him, " Did you see Napoleon 
the Great ? " " No ; I did not see Napoleon the Great, and Napoleon 
the Great did not see me." 

THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS. 

However able a community secretary may be, no one alone is able 
enough for the constructive kind of work which the community 
center requires. Since it is a cooperative enterprise, it is necessary 
that it be democratically organized. The next step in its organiza- 
tion therefore should be to provide the secretary with a cabinet. It 
may be called a board of directors, or a community council, or an 
executive committee. These names suggest its various functions. 
Its first function is to give council and advice to the community 
secretary, to act as a little forum for discussion, out of which may 
develop wise methods of procedure. Its next function is to share 
with the secretary the responsibility for the work, the burden of 
which is too heavy to be borne by anyone alone. But the cabinet is 
not a legislative body alone, to determine what is to be done, but also 
an executive body as well. It is not only an executive body, to carry 



HOW TO ORGANIZE A COMMUNITY CENTEE. 29 

out the general plans of the association, but also a body of directors 
to plan and conduct special kinds of activities. In every community 
there are men and women who have the ability and leisure to render 
public service. As directors they would have a recognized position 
and channel through which they can more effectively render such 
service. 

Each director ought to be the head of a department of work, or at 
least the head of every department of work ought to be a director. 
The head of each department ought to choose the members of his own 
committee. Thus by having the heads of departments of work on the 
board of directors, the entire work of the association can be fre- 
quently reviewed, and the departments of activity can by cooperating 
not only avoid needless waste through duplication but also stimulate 
each other. The board of directors ought to hold regular meetings in 
the schoolhouse, and in order that the work may be responsive to 
public opinion the meetings ought to be open to any who wish to 
attend them, just as the meetings of a town council are open. The 
community center stands for visible government and daylight di- 
plomacy. 

In the conduct of the association's activities a large measure of -f ree- 
dom ought to be granted the directors as well as the secretary. There 
can be no responsibility without freedom. The test of democracy 
is its willingness to trust its leaders. It is a test which democracies 
find it difficult to measure up to. The association ought to hold its 
officials to strict accountability, and it has the power to recall and 
replace them, but while they are in office and bear the responsibility 
they ought to be given freedom to use the means and methods which 
in their judgment are best suited to produce the results expected of 
them. The question here raised by democracy is not the extent of 
authority but its source. The principle of democracy is preserved if 
the source of authority is limited ; the efficiency of democracy is se- 
cured if the extent of authority is enlarged. 

The directors in communitj^-center work will not only feel the need 
of taking counsel v>^ith each other, but also of getting suggestions 
from other communities. In every city and county the community 
associations would do wisely to form a league for the purpose of pool- 
ing their experience and helping each other in what is manifestly a 
difficult task. In such a conference the representatives of local com- 
munities would discover that there may be many good roads leading 
to the same goal. Moreover, while it is possible to agree on our goal, 
it is rarely possible to agTee on the methods of reaching it. No prin- 
ciple is more important to observe in conducting community work. 
If, then, we can agree on our goal, we may well spare criticism on our 
fellows who travel a road different from ours. 



so A COMMUNITY CEFTEE. 

THE TROUBLE COMMITTEE. 

It is not so difficult to organize a community center ; the difficulty 
is to keep it organized. By no means the only one, but the chief 
means of securing a permanently useful community center is to have 
a wise and constructive program, big enough to merit interest. A 
good way to formulate such a program is to appoint a permanent 
committee which we may call " the trouble committee." The func- 
tion of this committee is not to make trouble, but to remove it. Its 
task is to discover the causes of trouble in the community, to learn 
the reasons for dissatisfaction, to state the problems wliich ought to 
be solved, to exhibit the thing that needs to be done. 

A community center can get helpful suggestions concerning pro- 
grams from State universities or extension committees, and it will nat- 
urally want to discuss the questions prominently in the public mind, 
but the most, interesting and constructive program is the attempt 
to improve conditions of living on its home soil. In such a program 
the first thing needed preparatory to action is diagnosis. Problem 
making is almost as important as problem solving. To know what 
the problem is, is half the battle. When the terms of a problem 
are accurately stated, the problem itself is partly solved in the 
process. It was a frequent experience of Lincoln that, after he 
had stated the facts of a case in court, the trial of it was arrested 
and called off. 

The work of the trouble committee is problem making. For ex- 
ample, why are country-bred boys leaving the farm in such large 
numbers; is farming a profitable industry; to what extent is the 
food of the country produced by the unpaid labor of children ; does 
it pay better to rent or to own a farm ; could an average young man 
earn enough from a farm to pay for it by honest labor in a reason- 
able number of years ; why do half the girls and boys fail to finish 
the grammar grades in school ; is the work of transportation and dis- 
tribution of food supplies economically clone; why is the cost of 
living so high ? If any community center should attempt to discover 
the causes of these unsatisfactory conditions, it would be a vital 
and attractive program sufficient to occupy it for several years. 

The function of the trouble committee is to furnish nuts for the 
community association to crack. No one believes in diagnosis for 
the sake of diagnosis any more than he believes in "amputation 
for the sake of amputation." Its only use is to reveal the disease 
and to point the way to a remedy. The aim of the trouble com- 
mittee is to point out the difficulties at the bottom of our social prob- 
lems for the sake of removing them. Whenever they are removed, 
the problem vanishes. The method of the committee is constructive 
democracy. 



HOW TO ORGANIZE A COMMUlsTITY CENTER. 31 

No community, however, ought to assume that it can solve all of 
its problems, at least, not speedily. " We are not born," said Goethe, 
I " to solve the problems of the world but to find out where the prob- 
lems begin, and then to keep within the limits of what we<;an grasp." 
This is a luminous remark, and the trouble committee merely as- 
sumes that in treating any problem the place to begin is at the 
beginning of it, and that the beginning of it is its cause. It assumes 
that "there is no alleviation for the suffering of manl^ind except 
veracity of thought and action, and the resolute facing of the world 
as it is." It assumes that it is not possible to purify the water in a 
well by painting the pump. It is painful to think how much social 
energ;^^ has been wasted in this process. No community center whose 
program is limited to painting the pump can either win or long hold 
the support of thoughtful men and women. Nor does it deserve to. 
The test of sanity used in some asylimas is to take the patient to a 
trough partially filled and into which an open spigot is pouring new 
supplies of water. The patient is asked to bail the water out of the 
trough. If he attempts to do so without first turning off the flow he 
is regarded as insane, and properly so. It is obviously sane to turn 
off the spigot, to remove the causes of disorder, if we ever expect to 
produce a social order in harmony with the intelligence and con- 
science of the Nation. This is the purpose and function of the trouble 
committee. For the most part, this committee holds the key to the 
success or failure of a community center. 

PUBLIC AND SELF-SUPPORT. 

The finances of an organization usually constitute its storm 
center. Money is the kind of thing it is difficult to get along with 
and impossible to get along without. After a community center 
determines its plans and policies, the next question in its organization 
is finance. But since money is the root of so much trouble, it ought 
to be kept in the background. It is properly called " ways and 
means." It is not the end ; human welfare is the end. Money is a 
detail, and ought always to be treated as such. 

The superior advantage of a community center over private or- 
ganizations is that it does not need an amount of money sufficient 
to cause it any distress. To begin with, there are no dues. They 
are already paid when the taxes are paid. The schoolhouse, together 
with heat, light, and janitor service, and in some places a portion of 
the secretary's salary, is provided out of public funds. Thus the 
overhead charges are comparatively very small. The time will 
doubtless come when the entire expense will be provided out of public 
funds, but the movement is new ; and for the present and immediate 
future, if the building, heat, light, and janitor service are provided, it 
is all that can reasonably be expected. 



32 A COMMUNITY CEISTTEB. 

The community center needs, for the present, to supplement its 
public funds. The highest salary paid out of public funds to a com- 
munity secretary in Washington, D. C, is $420 per year. This is 
not a salary, but a contribution toward a salary. This amount must 
be increased if we can hope ever to secure and retain the right type 
of person for this position. Then there is the stationery, postage, 
printing, and clerical work. How are these needs to be met? The 
only way is by voluntary effort. Each department of activity 
ought to be self-supporting. Those departments, like the buying 
club and the bank, which have an income ought to contribute a 
certain regular percentage to the association as a whole, because its 
general activities are necessary to the success of these departments. 
This percentage should be considered part of the necessary operating 
expenses of each department. The members of the community asso- 
ciation ought to register to indicate their intention to take an active 
part in its affairs. When they do, a small registration fee should be 
charged. 

These two sources will doubtless net sufficient funds. If they do 
not, then voluntary contributions and entertainments should furnish 
what is needed. It ought to be clearly noted that for a community 
center to raise part of its funds by voluntary effort does not mean 
that it is privately supported. The community association is a 
public body. As such, what money it raises is public money. It is 
not private support, but voluntary self-help. In a community center, 
public support and self-support are one and the same thing. Since 
the amount needed to be raised by voluntary effort is smaller than 
the amount received from public funds, there is little danger that 
large givers will have the opportunity to dominate the policies of 
the community center through their gifts. Above all others, this is 
the one clanger most to be guarded against. Because it is chiefly 
supported by public taxation, the conTinunity center is a place where 
all can meet on the basis of self-respect, where a man's standing is 
determined not by gifts of money, but by character and intelligence. 
Whenever this condition ceases to exist the community center dies. 

But so long as' the finances are organized democratically, the need 
for the community itself to raise part of its fund is a moral advan- 
tage and is social justice. For until public opinion becomes informed 
and unified a city or county must be fair to all its communities. To 
compel one community, without its consent, to support the activities 
of another is manifestly unjust and undemocratic. Whitman's defi- 
nition of democracy, "I will have nothing which every other m>an 
may not have the counterpart of on like terms," is our guiding prin- 
ciple in community finances. For a community to raise part of its 
funds is not only social justice to other communities but a benefit 
to the community itself. The community center is an enterprise 



HOW TO OBGANIZE A COMMUNITY CENTEE, 33 

for mutual aid in self-development. The process of raising part 
of its own funds is one of the means of such development. The 
people are compelled to pay taxes, but what they freely choose to 
contribute to their own enterprise is the only trustworthy guide to 
their attitude toward it and the best stimulus of their devotion to it. 
There can be self -development only where there is freedom. Partial 
voluntary suppgrt by a community insures local autonomy. " De- 
mocracy," says Bertrand Kussell, " is a device — the best so far 
invented — for diminishing the interference of governments with 
liberty." But political freedom is conditioned upon financial free- 
dom. A degree of self-support, therefore, frees a community from 
the domination of city and county governments. These considera- 
tions, if accepted as true, convert apparent burdens into blessings 
and weights into wings. 

A WORKING CONSTITUTION. 

What's a constitution among friends? It's a necessity if they are 
to continue to be friends. As the word itself suggests, a constitu- 
tion establishes the basis on which friends may stand for the a<3com- 
plishment of their common purposes. Its value is always to be 
measured by the importance of the purpose to be accomplished. 
Inasmuch as the purpose of a community center is of the highest 
value not only to the welfare of the local community, but also to 
the welfare of democracy in the N^ation and in the world, the making 
of its constitution is a. highly important item in its organization. 
" If democracy," said Havelock Ellis, " means a state in which every 
man shall be a freeman, neither in economic, nor intellectual, nor 
moral subjection, two processes at least are necessary to render 
democracy possible; on the one hand, a large and many-sided edu- 
cation; on the other, the reasonable organization of life" — nothing 
less than to state how these two objects may be secured is the pur- 
pose of the constitution of a community center. 

It will thus be seen that this constitution is very different from that 
of an ordinary society, which merely aims to give information about 
officers and meetings. This one may deeply affect the spiritual and 
economic life of a community. As the expression of certain ideas 
in a document known as "Magna charta," was a great gain in the 
long fight for freedom in the English-speaking world, so the expres- 
sion of a community's new social purpose may mean new freedom 
for it. 

As regards the work of the community center, the constitution is 
a working agreement, a clear understanding as to what is to be done 
and who is to do it. A clear statement will prevent needless friction 



34 A COMMUNITY CENTER. 

and confusion. As regards the growth of the work in the community, 
the constitution will serve the purpose of propaganda. If a new or 
uninformed member of the community should ask an active member, 
" What is a community center and what is its purpose ? " a copy of 
tlie constitution ought to furnish a full answer to his question. 
Therefore, it should not be too brief, if it is to answer this purpose. 
Each community ought to draft its own constitution, not only be- 
cause the needs of communities vary, and not only because it should 
be the honest expression of the community's own thought and pur- 
pose, but especially because a constitution brought from outside and 
dropped on the people's heads has little value for the community. 
Of course, it is possible for a community to work over and assimilate 
another community's constitution until it becomes its own. It ought 
also to get help and suggestions from as many constitutions as it can 
find. For this reason there will be found in Part III the copy of a 
constitution which the writer prepared to meet the needs of the Wil- 
son Normal Community in Washington, D. C, his own community. 
It was patiently considered in committee and thoroughly discussed 
in public meetings. It is now in operation. 

It is better for the people to make their own, either by creating a 
new one or adapting others to their needs, even if it is not as well 
done as somebody else could do it for them. In starting a community 
center an organizing committee should be charged with the task of 
drafting and submitting a constitution. If several weeks were spent 
on the task both in committee work and in jpublic discussion, the 
time would be well spent. The educational value of the process is 
too great for the people to miss. The process would educate a con- 
siderable number who will grasp the meaning of a community cen- 
ter and who will therefore be equipped to a degree for conducting 
its work. 

While the types of constitutions will be very various, yet there are 
certain formative principles which are basic in the structure of a 
community center. They are so essential to the life of the community 
ideal that the writer has called them " The ten commandments for a 
community center." They are as follows : 

I. It must guarantee freedom of thought and freedom in its 
expression. 
II. It must aim at unity, not uniformity, and accentuate resem- 
blances, not differences. 
III. It must be organized democratically, with the right to learn 

by making mistakes. 
IV. It must be free from the domination of money, giving the 
right of way to character and intelligence. 
V. It must be nonpartisan, nonsectarian, and nonexclusive both 
in purpose and practice. 



HOW TO ORGA]S"IZE A COMMUISriTY CENTER. 35 

VI. Remember that nothing will run itself unless it is running 
down hill. 
VII. Remember that to get anywhere, it is necessary to start from 
where you are. 
VIII. Remember that the thing to be done is more important than 
the method of doing it. 
IX. Remember that the water in a well can not be purified by 
painting the pump. 
X. Remember that progress is possible only when there is mental 
hospitality to new ideas. 

DECREASE OF ORGANIZATIONS. 

Edward Everett Hale reported Louis Agassiz as saying that when 
he came to America one of the amazing things he discovered was 
that no set of men could get together to do anything, though there 
were but five of them, unless they first drew up a constitution. If 
10 botanists, he said, met in a hotel in Switzerland to hear a paper 
read, they would sit down and hear it. But if American botanists 
meet for the same purpose, they spend the first day in forming an 
organization, appointing a committee to draw a constitution, cor- 
recting the draft made by them, appointing a committee to nominate 
officers, and then choosing a president, vice president, two s.ecre- 
taries, and a treasurer. This takes all the first day. If any of these 
people are fools enough or wise enough — ■" persistent " is the modern 
word — to come the next day, all will be well. They will hear the 
paper on botany. This is a good-natured, but well-deserved, criti- 
cism of the common tendency to start a new organization if anyone 
has an idea he wishes to propagate. 

The resulting damage of a multiplicity of organizations is that 
so much energy is consumed in the work of organizing that there is 
not enough left to operate them. It is like the steamboat of Lincoln's 
story, with a 7- foot whistle and a 5-foot boiler. Every time the 
whistle blew the engine had to stop running. 

There now exist over 80 separate organizations for the purpose of 
supplying some kind of war relief. Many of them have already 
applied and more doubtless will apply for permission to use the pub- 
lic schools to advance their various causes. It would be nothing 
short of a public benefaction if some device could be found to de- 
crease the present number of organizations and prevent the inex- 
cusable economic waste due to the duplication of activities. It is 
because we have so many organizations (plural) that we need more 
organization (singular) as a cure for this needless waste. 

The community center is such a device. It can perform this func- 
tion because it is a comprehensive organization. The center of any 



36 A COMMUNITY CENTEE. 

American community is the free public school, the only center it 
has. The community center is not a rival, but an ally, of other 
organizations. It is more; it is their foster mother ; it is the matrix 
Avhich gives them their setting. It embraces them as departmental 
activities. It is a coordinating instrument. It is a bureau of com- 
munity service. Both its spirit and method are well stated in the 
lines of Edwin Markham, which he appropriately calls " Out- 
witted " : 

He drew a circle which shut me out, 
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout ; 
But Love and I had the wit to win, 
We drew a circle that took him in. 

The fact that a community center is the community matrix explains 
why and how it can decrease the number of organizations and lorevent 
unnecessary new ones from forming. The method of direct attack 
is not only inconsiderate, but is foredoomed to failure. If a com- 
munity center should say to any existing organization, "We want 
you deliberately to disband, to chloroform yourself," it would defeat 
its own purpose. Human nature just doesn't operate that way. The 
wiser method of the community center is to relate them to each other 
and to itself, as departments of activity, so that duplication may be 
exhibited as social waste. The mere exhibition of this fact will 
induce some organizations voluntarily to disband or merge with 
others. The disease of overorganization, like some other diseases, 
only needs, for its cure, exposure to the fresh air. The community 
center furnishes the atmospheric condition of public opinion, in which 
unfit organizations will naturally die and the fit survive. The method 
is both gentle and just. It treats outgrown organizations as we 
always treat outgrown laws. We do not rescind them, we just let 
them die. 

Just as fair competition in an open field furnishes the condition 
under which weak and less worthy organizations die, likewise it 
furnishes the condition under which strong and worthy ones thrive 
and expand. All they ask is a fair field and no favors. Their work 
speaks for itself. The civilian relief work of the Red Cross is a 
case in point. The Red Cross has enlarged the scope of its activi- 
ties to include not only remedial but constructive work. Its policy 
is not only to cure but to prevent disease.' Constructive work under 
the noble name and sign of the Eed Cross in upbuilding the Nation's 
strength is so akin to the aims of the community center that they 
ought to cooperate in order to save needless social waste. They travel 
the same road; they ought to traA^el together as comrades. A few 
counties now employ Red Cross public health nurses. One State has 
recently passed a law which provides that each of its counties shall 
support out of public funds a nurse for town and country service. 



HOW TO ORGANIZE A COMMUNITY CENTER. 37 

It is only a question of time when a public health nurse will be at- 
tached to every community center. 

The community center is the natural hub of a community wheel. 
It does not claim to be, it is necessarily, the comxDrehensive organiza- 
tion. But Eed Cross work ought to be a department of the com- 
munity center. They need each other. The community center is in 
a position to open just the kind of a door of opportunity which the 
Eed Cross needs for the success of its work. There are large classes 
of people who have not enlisted in Eed Cross work. And yet they 
have sons in the war and are making heroic sacrifices. They desire 
to do war work as they have always been willing to do relief and 
constructive work in times of peace. But they will not come to 
fashionable hotels or similar exclusive places. For obvious reasons 
they will come to the schoolhouse. If, therefore, Eed Cross units 
were organized as departments of community centers, the Eed Cross 
could enlist in its service a multitude now outside of its reach, and 
the Eed Cross, because of its resources and its semiofficial character, 
could put the aims of the community center into operation. The 
opportunity for mutual serAdce is such that it would be a statesman- 
like move if the Eed Cross should devote time and money to the 
establishment of community centers as the most i^ractical and eco- 
nomical instruments through which to expand its activities. A Eed 
Cross unit ought to exist as a department of the community center 
in every school district of the United States. 

The community-center movement and the Eed Cross have the more 
reason for uniting their strength because the preventive work which 
they both aim to do, while more important, is less dramatic and 
usually attracts less popular support. But it is to this kind of work: 
that the world gives its verdict of approval when the perspectivei 
of time enables it to distinguish between the big and the little. It is 
doubtful whether to-day one man in a thousand knows the names 
of the two generals who commanded the opposing armies in the 
Crimean War. Even when they are mentioned — Lord Eaglan and 
Gen. Toddleben — they sound strangely unfamiliar. But there was 
one participant in that war whose name is now a household word — > 
Florence Nightingale. Yet it was the generals who occupied the 
conspicuous positions; it was they who rode horseback and wore 
showy uniforms; it was they for whom the bands played and the 
soldiers applauded, while this Eed Cross nurse did the apparently 
commonplace work of giving cups of cold water to wounded soldiers 
and easing the head of some homesick man as he lay dying. But 
these wounded men kissed her very shadow where it fell. It was a 
healing shadow. Such constructive work, even though it consists in 
little deeds of wayside kindness, is work for the ages. Such con- 
structive work will be so needed to heal the wounds in the social, 



38 A COMMUNITY CENTER. 

industrial, and political world in the reconstruction days immediately 
ahead that the community center and the Red Cross would do wisely 
to unite their strength, not only to meet the Nation's present need 
but to assist in building a better sort of world. The task of the 
community-center movement is at once so difficult and so essential 
for the success of our experiment in democracy that it needs the assist- 
ance of every agency whose aims are similar to its own. In helping 
to create community centers the Red Cross would not only be serving 
itself but rendering a national service of the highest importance. 

We are thus equipped with a wise principle always to be observed 
in the organization of a community center. It should adapt itself to 
the organizations already in the field and cooperate with them. It 
does not antagonize them but assists them to expand into something 
bigger. It may more speedily reach its goal if it would evolve out 
of some good existing organization. A community center never 
loses sight of its ultimate purpose, but it does not disdain to make 
use of the instruments which lie at its hand because they are im- 
perfect. Lincoln applied this principle in the policy of reconstruc- 
tion he had begun. Although he was bitterly criticised for it he 
defended it in the last speech he ever made. " Concede," he said, 
" that the new government of Louisiana is only, to what it should be, 
as the egg is to the fowl ; we shall sooner have the fowl by hatching 
the egg than by smashing it." 

THE HOUSE OF THE PEOPLE. 

Whenever an idea gets itself embodied in concrete form, visible 
to the eye, it becomes the more potent and persuasive. The reason 
why the ancient and common use of symbols renders a distinct service 
to ideals is obvious. Sense impressions received through the eye gate 
are more vivid and permanent than those received through any other 
gate. We say, "in one ear and out the other " ; we do not say, " in 
one eye and out the other." As an efficient means of propaganda, 
therefore, it is profoundly important that the community ideal 
should be embodied in a type of school building which represents it. 
If it is to be used as a house of the people, it ought to look like a house 
of the people. A community which plans to build a new schoolhouse 
or to adapt an old one to new community uses must consider two 
questions: First, what are its internal needs? Second, what style of 
building best serves these needs? The two questions are one and 
inseparable. They are related to each other like a man and his 
clothes or like ideas and the words which express them. 

Wliat are the internal needs and community uses which the new 
type of school buildings is required to meet j The essential needs 
may fairly be regarded as seven. They seem to require a large ex- 
penditure, but from the standpoint of community finances the 



HOW TO OKGAISiIZE A COMMUNITY CENTER. S9 

facilities here suggested obviously mean a wise economy, because they 
will prevent a needless duplication of buildings. They are used not 
only for school activities, but also for every variety of activity bj'' 
youths and adults. These essential facilities are as follows : 

1. An assejnbly room; to be used also for social games, folk dances, 
dinner parties, and gymnasium purposes. 

2. Classrooms; to be so arranged that they may be used also for 
departmental activities of the community center. 

3. A woi'kshop; to be used also for vocational night classes and for 
mechanical experimental work as recreation. 

4- Library and- reading room; to be used also as a neighborhood 
club, conference room, and a clearing house for information. 

6. Kitchen and storeroom; to be used also for household economics, 
community dinners, and cooperative exchanges. 

6. An open fireplace; to be used for its spiritual value in creating 
good cheer and the neighborly sense of fellowship. 

7. Voting instruments; to be erected permanently and used not 
only in the curriculum of the school and in public elections, but also 
as a symbol of the aim for which both the school and community 
center stand. 

In addition to these seven practical and tj^pical features of a com- 
munity schoolhouse, there is one small luxury which properly may 
be regarded as a necessity. On the lawn of every community school 
should be erected a sundial. Its use is not the ordering of the day by 
the sundial rather than the time-table in order to stimulate good and 
honest work ; nor is its use to act as a reminder of the need of leisure 
for personal growth, although it would serve both of these purposes. 
But its chief use is to be the symbol of an idea, without which a com- 
munity center can not live. Charles Lamb said that if a sundial 
could talk, it would say of itself, " I count only those hours which are 
serene." It operates only when the sun shines. It illustrates the 
wisdom of looking on the bright, not the dark side of things ; of being 
positive, not negative; of accentuating the resemblances, not the 
differences; of cultivating one's admirations, not one's disgusts. 
Without the practice of the principle of the sundial, the people of 
the community can never be mobilized for effective concerted action 
and national service. 

In view of patriotic ideals like these which the school is designed to 
serve, the question concerning the style of building acquires a new 
and profound significance. What type of architecture most fittingly 
represents the institution most characteristic of the American ideal, 
the community schoolhouse? Two types have been generally sug- 
gested and widely used. They are the colonial and the Tudor or 
collegiate gothic. Both have real merits, but both have defects which 
seriously handicap their use for our purpose. The colonial has 



40 A COMMUNITY CENTER. 

simple, effective lines, but is cold, rigid, puritanic, and lacking in joy. 
Moreover, in its more elaborate forms, it was the common tj^pe used 
for the elegant mansions of southern aristocracy. Their pillared 
porticoes suggest a coach and four driving under them. 

The Gothic type has the advantage of being more economical to 
build. Its chief merit originally was its "rudeness" or imperfec- 
tion. The term " Gothic " was at first a term of reproach, but it ac- 
quired honor as men discovered that every great work ought to be 
imperfect if it is inspired by an unattainable ideal, as it ought to be. 
For this reason the lines in a Gothic building suggest aspiration. 
The distinguishing feature of Gothic architecture is that its beautiful 
ornaments, while always aspiring after an unattained perfection, 
always rest on the utilitarian principle of use. The flying buttress 
was not attached to a gothic cathedral as an ornament. It was put 
there to prop up the wall. The pinnacle on its top, ornamental as it 
is, was not put there as an ornament. It was put there as a weight 
to keep the prop from slipping off the wall. 

In spite of the obvious and great merits of the Gothic type 
of building, which can and ought to be utilized in new forms, its 
defects should be frankly recognized. It has been associated in our 
thought with exclusive, cloistered seats of learning, like Cambridge 
and Oxford ; it lends itself easily to indulgence in elaborate display 
of art for art's sake instead of for life's sake ; and it is a permanent 
reminder of medieval ecclesiasticism, which is out of harmony with 
modern ideals of democracy. 

It seems evident that the appropriate style of architecture to em- 
body the democratic idea for which America stands remains still to 
be created. The best is yet to be. Ruskin says that : 

Great nations write their autobiographies in tliree manuscripts — the booli of 
their deeds, tlie booli of their words, and the book of tlieir art. Not one of tliese 
books can be understood unless we read tlie two otliers, but of the tliree, the 
only trustworthy one is the last. 

What men embody in material form, invest large sums of money in, 
and lovingl}^ seek to beautify, is a sure index of the value they place 
upon it. America has not yet written her autobiography in archi- 
tecture, but she has started to write it, and has begun to express her 
appreciation of the indispensable importance of education to a de- 
mocracy, as is seen in the handsome new school buildings now being 
erected in all parts of the country. A rare opportunity to render a 
patriotic service is now afforded to those architects who are also 
artists, if they have the courage to discard ancient conventional 
standards and create a new type to represent the American democratic 
idea. 

In this process laymen in art have a marked responsibility, because 
they finally determine the kind of building to be erected. In a 



HOW TO ORGANIZE A COMMUNITY CENTER. 41 

democracy, art, like everything else, is profoundly affected by public 
opinion. Moreover, laymen can prevent professional architects from 
imposing any one conventional type of school building upon all com- 
munities. To do so would be deadly dullness. This will be pre- 
vented also by the need for adaptation in various sections of the 
country to conditions of climate, to materials available for use, and 
to the location of buildings. But while there should be variety of 
form, there are certain formative principles which must always 
distinguisli a community type of building. It must be a democratic 
building; that is, it must be beautiful, because hunger for beauty is 
universal and beauty is of the highest educational value; it must 
be cheerful, for to dispense joy to all is a duty demanded of the 
democratic ideal ; it must be in simple good taste, so that the average 
man will feel unoppressed and unembarrassed by it ; it must be eco- 
nomical to build, and a beautiful building is necessarily more 
economical ; it must be low, springing out of the soil, easy of access, 
wide spreading, ample for hospitality, for no man can be a democrat 
by himself; it must be an honest building; that is, its beauty must 
be organic. It is not artificial adornment superimposed from the 
outside, but inheres in the structure itself. It is like the true beauty 
of complexion, which does not depend on an external application of 
paint, but on the rude internal facts of digestion and circulation of 
blood. No beauty exists in nature unconnected with her useful 
processes. Likewise a democratic building is natural and honest. 
It has little or no ornament; its charm is an inborn fitness and 
proportion. JSTo canon of taste is more holy than fitness. 

The style of architecture which embodies these essential principles 
of a democratic building more nearly perhaps than any other is the 
new Santa Fe type, which is a combination of the old mission and 
adobe style in such a way as to justify us in regarding it as a real 
American product. It is well illustrated in the Alhambra Consoli- 
dated School near Phoenix, Ariz. The artist-architect who has 
courage to escape from slavery to the precedents of yesterday and 
the stupid imitations of outgrown standards, and who will take for 
his motto " Not one thing that you do not laiow to be useful and 
believe to be beautiful," has to-day the opportunity to assist the 
people to create a new representative American architecture, fitted 
to express their new discovery of the need for a community school- 
house. To build a real house of the people is a patriotic service of 
the highest order. Fletcher B. Dresslar, in his able and compre- 
hensive bulletin on American Schoolhouses, very appropriately re- 
minds the builders of one of these temples of democracy that " Who- 
ever undertakes to build a schoolhouse to meet and foster these ideals 
ought to approach his task with holy hands and a consciousness of 
the devotion which it is to typify." 



42 A COMMUNITY CENTER. 

FREE TRADE IN FRIENDSHIP. 

This, then, is the writer's understanding as to what a community 
center is and hpw to organize it, briefly stated. To treat in brief a 
subject so big with meaning for the common welfare, one needs what 
the poet Keats calls " negatiA^e capabilities ; " he must know what 
to leave in the inkstand, unsaid. 

But after the most efficient methods of organization have been 
discovered and applied, there is one word which must never be left 
unsaid or unheeded. Organization is to the thing to be done what 
a shell is to an egg. And while a shell is necessary for the con- 
venient handling of eggs, the shell is not the egg. The egg of a 
community center, its heart and soul, is an idea, a spiritual purpose. 
To sacrifice its soul to efficiency is like selling the egg for the shell. 

If Ruth's sickle, used in the Hebrew republic, were placed by the 
side of the McCormick reaper in a world's fair, our progress in 
mechanical efficiency would be dramatically exhibited. But how 
about Ruth herself ? If she appeared among the women at the fair, 
would our superiority in that branch of manufacture be so apparent? 
Is it Ruth or only her sickle we have improved? Almost every 
nation has at its beginning some formative principle which shapes 
its organization and determines its contribution to the world's wel- 
fare. In Palestine it was religion ; in Greece it was culture ; in Rome 
it was law; in America it is what? Her birth and history clearly 
indicate that America's high mission is the enfranchisement of man- 
hood, the development of the individual. This purpose is the soul 
of the community center movement. 

The community ideal is fittingly expressed in a high relief by 
Frank F. Stone, who illuminates it by contrasting it with its opposite 
ideal. In this work of art three figures are represented. On the 
right is the figure of a well-fed, self -centered man. The expression 
on the face is a freezing scorn and utter disdain of his fellow men. 
The crown, miter, money bag, sword, and ermine robe which he 
holds in his hands, all indicate that he is an egotist, who through 
wealth, the assumption of divine rights, the accident of birth, or the 
sword of force seeks power, prestige, and advantage over others. 
Opposite him is the type of a true democrat, who finds life not 
insipid, but inspiring. He is in the act of scaling the difficult heights 
of human achievement through his own unaided efforts. But he is 
unwilling to rise alone, and as he fixes his eyes on the heights which 
beckon him, he reaches down a helping hand to raise a weaker brother 
with himself. No work of art could more clearly represent the 
community center ideal, together with the ideal which it seeks to 
replace. The only effective way to destroy an unworthy ideal is 
to replace it with a better one. 



HOW TO ORGANIZE A COMMUNITY CENTER. 43 

The community center aims to realize its ideal by promoting free 
trade in friendship among all individuals and classes of the commu- 
liitj. This is its most efficient means for producing results, because 
men are more influenced through their feelings than their intellects. 
This is the reason why " i3oets are the unacknowledged legislators 
of the world." For the same reason friendship is the chief sol- 
vent of social and industrial difficulties. When David Grayson 
sat at dinner with a factor}^ owner, Mr. Vedder, and was helping him 
to settle a strike then in operation, Mr. Vedder asked him what kind 
of social philosopher he called himself. " I do not call myself by 
any name," said Grayson, " but if I chose a name, do you know the 
name I would like to have applied to me ? " "I can not imagine," 
was the answer. " Well, I would like to be called ' an introducer.' 
My friend, Mr. Blacksmith, let me introduce you to nij friend, Mr. 
Plutocrat. I could almost swear that you are brothers, so near alike 
you are. You will find each other wonderfully interesting, once you 
get over the awkwardness of the introduction." " It is a good name," 
said Mr. Vedder, laughing. " Its a wonderful name," said Grayson, 
" and its about the biggest and finest work in the world — to know 
human beings just as they are and to make them acquainted with one 
another just as they are. Why, its the foundation of all the democ- 
racy there is or ever will be. Sometimes I think that friendliness is 
the only achievement of life worth while, and unfriendliness the only 
tragedy." The community center is a factory for the manufacture 
of friendship, and the chief business of a community secretary is to be 
" an introducer." 

Just as the mere statement of a problem is half of its solution, like- 
wise free trade in friendship among men would break down half the 
barriers which separate them, because it would remove the chief cause 
of their strife. For a community to Carry on its work without culti- 
vating the spirit of friendship is like drawing a harrow over frozen 
ground. This is so essential to success that one of its chief aims 
should be to promote free trade in friendship by producing a collec- 
tion of community center songs, so that the people could sing the 
sentiment as it is expressed in such poems as Sichard Burton's — 

If I had the time to find a place 
And sit me down full face to face, 

With my better self, that can not show 

In my daily life that rushes so : 
It might be then I would see my soul 
Was stimibling still toward the shining goal, 
I might be nerved by the thought sublime — 
If I had the time! 



44 A COMMUNITY CENTEE. 

If I had the time to let my heart 

Speak out and take in my life a part, 
To look about and to stretch a hand 
To a comrade quartered in no-luck land ; 

Ah, God ! If I might but just sit still 

And hear the note of the whippoorwill, 

I think that my wish with God's would rhyme — 
If I had the time ! 

If I had the time to learn from you 

How much for comfort my word could do ; 

And I told you then of my sudden will 

To kiss your feet when I did you ill ; 
If the tears aback of the coldness feigned 
Could flow, and the wrong be quite explained — 
Brothers, the soxils of us all would chime. 
If we had the time ! 

The community center seeks to promote friendship, not only in 
local communities but also among communities, and not only among 
communities in a single state or nation, but among the larger com- 
munities of the nations themselves, by stimulating devotion to com- 
mon ideals, for there can be no friendship unless there is similarity 
of aims and purposes. There is, perhaps, no more accurate or beau- 
tiful expression of that which separates and unites national com- 
munities than is to be found in the following letter sent to America 
by a pupil in Paris and made public by John H. Finley : 

It was only a little river, almost a brook ; it Avas called the Yser. One could 
talk from one side to the other without raising one's voice; and the birds could 
fly over it with one sweep of their wings. And on the tv/o banks there were 
millions of men, the one turned toward the other, eye to eye. But the distance 
which separated them Avas greater than the stars in the sky; it was the 
distance which separates right from injustice. 

The ocean is so vast that the sea. gulls do not dare to cross it. During seven 
days and seven nights the great steamships of America, going at full speed, 
drive through the deep waters before the lighthouses of France come into 
view ; but from one side to the other hearts are touching. 

Manifestly the task of the community center is complex and diffi- 
cult. Our business, however, is not to debate the possibility of reach- 
ing the goal, but to make a start toward it. When Socrates was 
asked, " How shall we get to Mount Qlympus ? " he answered, " By 
doing all your walking in that direction." While we keep Mount- 
Olympus in sight to give us direction, we must recognize that the 
amount of possible progress toward it is determined by conditions 
as we find them. Our choice does not lie between the ideal and the 
actual. We must always choose both. We must know not only the 
goal but the road to it. Our practical problem is to desire a working 
plan which includes what is both ideally desirable and actually 
possible. If we are ever to arrive at Mount Olympus, we must start 



HOW TO ORGANIZE A COMMUNITY CENTER. 45 

from where we are, we must take things " as is ; " we must " accept 
the universe " and try to fashion it as best we may with patience and 
good humor. 

Although the road to the community center goal is difficult, never- 
theless the hope of ultimate success has the best of guarantees. It 
is buttressed by unescapable necessity. The solid basis on which 
this hope rests is the lack of self-sufficiency. On this fact society 
itself is founded. On this principle, Plato constructed his republic. 
No community nor nation, as well as no individual, is self-sufficient. 
This applies both to the supply of physical necessities and the supply 
of food for minds and souls. No nation, as no man, can long live a 
Eobinson Crusoe type of existence. They have a community of 
interests. All men are political animals. They must have with each 
other some kind of business, either good or bad. The community 
center movement merely aims to make this business good instead of 
bad. The obvious sanity of this policy is the guarantee of its ulti- 
mate triumph. 

While a lack of knowledge concerning both the spirit and method 
of democracy makes the road to this goal a difficult one to travel, 
yet the reward^ by the way are always in proportion to the hard- 
ships. The satisfaction of working for a cause bigger than one's 
private advantage is never lost, whatever be the fortunes of the cause 
itself. Eric, a djdng soldier boy in France writing his last letter to 
his father and mother, well expressed both the satisfaction and its 
cause when he said : " To a very small number it is given to live in 
liistory; their number is scarcely 1 in 10,000,000. To the rest it 
is only granted to live in their united achievements." This is the 
experience not only of vision-seeing, chivalrous youth who have not 
yet exchanged their ideals for their comforts, but it is the experience 
also of a mature man like Thomas Jefferson. When the long shadows 
fell across his life and he came to write his epitaph, this is what 
he wrote: 

Here was buried 
Thomas Jefferson 

author of the 

DECLARATION 

of 

AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 

of the 

Statute of Virginia 

for 

Religious Freedom 

and father of the 

University of Virginia. 



46 A COMMUN"ITY CEIfTEE. 

It is liighl}^ significant that he never mentions the fact that he 
liad been governor of Virginia, Secretary of State, minister to France, 
twice President of the United States. That is to sdij, he never men- 
tions any jpersonal rewards, anything that the people had done for 
him, but only what he had done for the people, only the service 
which his genius and loyalty had rendered to the community causes 
of democracy and education. This alone is what he cared to re- 
member with joy and pride. This is why the community-center 
movement is justified in claiming the major loyalty of all soldiers 
of the common welfare. 



PABT III. 

A SUGGESTED CONSTITUTION. 



The following is the constitution prepared by tlie writer for a 
community center in Washington, D. C, and is reproduced here as 
a suggestion to other communities : 

Pkeamble. 

We, the people of the Wilson Normal Communitj' of the City of Washington, 
D. C, iu order to secure the advantages of organized self-help, to make public 
opinion more enlightened and effective, to promote the education of adults 
and youths for citizenship in a democracy, to organize the use of the public 
school as the community capitol, to foster a neighborhood spirit through which 
the community may become a more efficient social unit, to prevent needless 
waste through the duplication of social activities, to engage in cooperative 
enterprises for oiu' moral and material welfare, and to create a social order 
more in harmony with the conscience and intelligence of the Nation, do ordain 
and establish this constitution. 

Article I. — ^Name. 

The name of this organization shall be tlie Wilson Normal Community Asso- 
ciation, and its headquarters the Wilson Normal School Building. 

Aeticle II. — LocATio::^. 

The community shall be defined as follows : Beginning at Fourteenth and 
W Streets, tlience north on the east side of Fourteenth Street to Monroe Street, 
thence east on the east side of Monroe Street and Park Road to Georgia Ave- 
nue, thence south on the west side of Georgia Avenue to Irving Street, thence 
east on the south side of Irving Street to Soldiers' Home, thence south on west 
side of Soldiers' Home, McMillan Park, and Reservoir to College Street, tlience 
west on north side of College Street and Barry Place to Tenth Street, thence 
south on the west side of Tenth Street to W Street, thence west on the north 
side of W Street to Fourteenth Street, the place of beginning. 

Aeticle III. — Members. 

The members of the association shall be all the white adult citizens of this 
community, both men and women. A limited number of nonresident members 
may be received into membership, provided they are not registered members 
of any other organized community. Organizations now in operation which 
are nonpartisan, nousectarian, and whose aim is the public welfare, such as 

47 



48 A COMMUiSriTY CENTEE. 

" Citizen associations," " Home and school leagues," " Red Cross chapters," 
" "Women's clubs," " College settlements," " Housekeepers' alliances," desiring 
to retain their name and identity for the sake of cooperation with other 
brandies of similar organizations, may become departments of this association. 
There shall be no suggestion of superiority or inferiority among the depart- 
ments. Tlie members of each department shall have the same standing as all 
other members. 

Article IV. — Officeks. 

The association shall elect by ballot from its OAvn members a board of direc- 
tors, or community council, which shall be both a legislative and an executive 
body. It shall consist of not less than 6 nor more than 15 members. They 
shall be elected for a period of three years, excepting for the first year, when 
one-third of the number shall be elected for one year, one-third for two years, 
and one-third for three years. 

The chairman of the committee in charge of each department of the associa- 
tion shall be a member of the board of directors. A chairman may be appointed 
by the board or selected by the department itself and confirmed by the board. 
Chairmen shall have the right to select the members of their own committees. 

The community secretary, whose public election is provided for by the board 
of education, shall be a member of the board of directors and a member ex 
officio of all committees. It shall be his duty to exercise general supervision 
over all the activities of the association, and to nominate, by and with the 
consent of the directors, all assistant secretaries. They shall have the right to 
attend all meetings of the board and take part in the discussions, but shall 
have no vote. 

As soon after the annual election as convenient the directors shall meet to 
organize, and shall elect from their own number a president, vice president, 
and a secretary-treasurer, who shall perform the duties usually performed by 
such officers, and who shall also be the officers of the association. 

Akticle V. — Departments. 

The board of directors is authorized to organize and operate departments 
of activity, such as forum, civics, recreation, home and school, buying club, and 
community bank, whose activities shall be supervised and whose accounts shall 
be audited by the board of directors. 

1. Forum Department: The committee in charge of this department shall 
arrange for public meetings, at such times as the association may decide, for 
the free and orderly discussion of all questions which concern the social, moral, 
political, and economic welfare of the commvmity. It shall select a presiding 
officer for such meetings, secure speakers, suggest subjects, and formulate the 
method of conducting discussions. 

2. Recreation Department : The committee in charge of this department shall 
provide and conduct games, dances, community dramas, musicals, motion 
pictures, and shall promote all similar play activities, with a view to increasing 
the joy, health, and good fellowship among both adults and youths. 

3. Civics Department : The committee in charge of this department shall pro- 
vide the members with the means of securing information concerning politics, 
local, national, and international; it shall stimulate a more intelligent interest 
in government by the use of publicity pamphlets ; it shall suggest ways in which 
the members may contribute to the economic and efficient administration of 
the city's affairs ; it shall provide courses of studies for young men and women 



A SUGGESTED CONSTITTJTIOISr. 49 

as a preparation for citizenship, and devise metliods of organizing the youtli into 
voluntary, cooperative, and constructive forms of patriotic service. 

4. The Home and School Department: The committee in charge of this de- 
partment shall seek to promote closer cooperation between the school and home, 
the teachers and parents; it shall aim to improve the school equipment, to 
secure more adequate support and better housing conditions for teachers; it 
shall organize and conduct study classes for youths and adults ; it shall provide 
such ways and means or remove such obstacles as may be necessary to enable 
all children to remain in school until they have finished the grammar grades, 
Avhether these obstacles be the kind of studies now pursued in school, the home 
conditions of the children, or the economic conditions of the community. 

5. Buying^ Club Department: The committee in charge of this department 
shall organize and operate in the school a delivery station for food products with 
a view of decreasing the cost of living; it shall establish a direct relation 
between the producer and consumer in order to eliminate wastes; it shall 
seek to safeguard the people's health by furnishing the purest food obtainable ; 
it shall aim to moralize trade by giving full weight and measure and substitut- 
ing public service for private exploitation ; it shall eliminate debt by asking 
for no credit and giving none ; it shall practice economy and equity in order 
to secure a larger return to the producer and decrease the cost to the consumer. 

An anual fee shall be required of all members of the buying club, payable 
quarterly in advance, to defray operating expenses, the amount of the fee to be 
determined by the committee, and it shall be decreased or increased as the 
number of members and volume of business warrant. All members shall secure 
their goods at the net wholesal-^ cost price. 

Goods shall be cold only to members of the buying club. Membership in the 
buying club is open only to members of the association and only to those mem- 
bers who are depositors in the community bank. 

The buying club shall set aside annually a sum equal to 2 per cent of the 
amount of its sales, to be used by the association for the purpose of educating 
its members in the principle and practice of cooperation, until public appropri- 
ations are sufficient to provide the means for such education. 

The club shall set aside annually a sum equal to 1 per cent of the amount of 
its sales as a reserve fund to cover unexpected losses. 

The committee in charge of the buying club shall serve without compensation 
but may employ one or more executives to conduct the business of the club, 
who shall receive compensation for their services, the amount of which shall 
be fixed by the committee, but the amount shall be determined, as far as pos- 
sible, on a percentage basis according to service rendered. 

All checks, drafts, or notes made in the name of the club shall be counter- 
signed by the chairman of the directing committee. The executive in charge 
of the buying ciub shall be required to give a surety bond. 

6. Community Bank Department: The committee in charge of this depart- 
ment shall organize and conduct a credit union bank for members of the 
association in order to capitalize honesty and to democratize credit, and to 
multiply the efficiency of their savings by pooling them for cooperative use. 
It shall be known as the " Community Bank." It shall receive savings de- 
posits both from children and adults and shall make loans. It shall, if pos- 
sible, be a part of the curriculum of the school, at least as regards deposits of 
children. The committee in charge shall serve without compensation, but may 
employ one executive to conduct its business who shall be required to furnish 
a surety bond. 



50 A COMMUNITY CEISTTEB. 

The bank shall make loans only to indiyidual members of the association 
and to the buying club for productive purposes, but no loan shall be made to 
any member of the committee in charge of the bank. Deposits may be received 
from those other than members. 

The bank shall issue no capital stock, but shall charge entrance fees, which, 
shall be used as a reserve fund and returned to depositors when they withdraw 
from membership. 

The bank may make small short-time loans secured only by the character 
and industry of the borrower. It may. make long-time loans, secured by 
mortgage, character, and industry, to young men and women for the purpose 
of helping them to secure houses in which to start homes, and the payment of 
such loans may be made on the amortization plan. 

The rate of interest charged for all loans shall be 5 per cent. The amount 
of interest allowed on deposits shall be the net profit after operating expenses 
are paid. The bank shall use no other bank as a clearing house Mdiich is not 
under the supervision of the United States Government. All loans shall be 
made by check and all such checks shall be countersigned by the chairman of 
the directing committee. 

An amount equal to one-half of 1 per cent of its deposits shall be set 
aside as a reserve fund. An amount equal to 10 per cent of its deposits 
shall be invested in Federal Farm Loan Bonds, Liberty Bonds, or in other 
Federal, State, or municipal bonds. 

The community bank shall be operated not on the principle of unlimited, 
joint, and several liability of its members, but it shall have the right to de- 
mand pro rata payments from them to meet any loss through unpaid loans, pro- 
vided the reserve fund is not eiifficient to cover such losses. 

Article YI. — Coopeeation. 

There shall be no dues for membership in the community association, the 
dues having already been paid through public taxation ; but the association, by 
voluntary subscription and in other ways, may raise funds to inaugurate or 
support its work if the amount received from public appropriation is insufficient 
to meet its needs. 

The association may unite with other similar associations in the District of 
Columbia to form a community league, in order to conduct a central forum or 
cooperate with each other for any other purpose which may serve their common 
welfare. 

The association adopts the policy of cordial cooperation with tlie board of 
education and provides that a designated member of the school board may be 
a member ex officio of its board of directors. He may attend any of its meet- 
ings, take part in the discussions, and vote on all questions. 

Article VII. — Meetings. 

The 'board of directors shall hold monthly meetings at such times as they 
may determine. All regular monthly meetings of the board shall be open meet- 
ings. When a vacancy occurs, through d&ath or otherwise, the board may fill 
the vacancy until the next annual meeting. If any director shall be absent 
from three successive stated meetings without excuse, such absence shall be 
deemed a resignation. 

Quarterly meetings of the association shall be held on the second Tuesday of 
January, April, July, and October. The April quarterly meeting shall be the 



A SUGGESTED CONSTITUTIOISr. 51 

annual meeting to elect officers, hear reports from all departments, and to 
transact such other business as may be necessary. 

This constitution may be amended at any annual meeting or at any quarterly 
meeting if previous notice of the proposed amendment is given. In all elec- 
tions the preferential ballot may be used with reference both to officers and 
measures ; the initiative, referendum, and recall may be employed in such man- 
ner as the association itself may determine. 



AN OUTLINE FOR A CONSTITUTION. 

The following is a digest of the preceding constitution for those communities 
which may prefer a briefer form: 

Article I. — ^Name. 

This association shall be known as The Community Center Association of 

School District No. , County of , State of 

__, , and its headquarters the schoolhouse. 

Akticle II. — Object. 

Its object shall be to mobilize the people of this community for national 
service and organized self-help, to equip its members for citizenship in a democ- 
racy, to prevent needless waste through the duplication of activities, and to 
create a social order in harmony with the conscience and intelligence of the 
Nation. 

Aeticle III. — Members. 

Its members shall be all adult citizens of the district. Any organization 
which is nonpartisan and nonsectarian and whose aim is the public welfare may 
become a department of the association. 

Article IV. — Officers. 

The association shall elect not less than 9 and not more than 1-5 directors, 
who shall constitute the community council. The council shall elect from its 
own members a president, vice president, and secretary-treasurer, who shall 
also be the officers of the association. The chairman in charge of any depart- 
ment of work shall be a member of the community council. 

Article V. — Community Secretary. 

The community council may employ an executive or business manager to 
carry on its work, who shall be paid either from public appropriations or by 
volunteer contributions. 

Article VI. — Departments. 

The association shall organize and conduct whatever departments of activity 
it deems necessary to meet present and permanent needs, both local and 
national, such as forum, civics, recreation, home and school, buying club, and 
community bank. 



^ 



52 A COMMUNITY CENTER. 

Article VII. — Finances. 

There shall be no clues for membership in the association, the dues having 
already been paid through public taxation. But when necessary it may raise, 
through voluntary subscriptions and in other ways, the funds required to con- 
duct its activities. 

Akticle VIII. — Meetings. 

The association shall hold quarterly meetings, one of whicii simll oe tne 
annual meeting to hear reports and elect officers. The community council 
shall hold regular monthly meetings, which shall be open to the public. The 
departments shall be free to hold as many meetings as may be necessary. 

o 







J -^t^- ,-^ V-c\ 



? 






BULLETIN OF THE BTTREATT OP EDUCATION. 

[Continued from page 2 of cover.] 

No.c>4. Institutions in tbe United States giving instruction in agriculture. 

A. C. Monalian and C. H. Dye, 
No. 35. Tlie township and community higli-school movement In Illinois. H. A. 

Hollister. 
No. 86. Demand for vocational education in the counti-ies at war. Anna T, 

Smith. 
No. 37. The .conference on training for foreign service. Glen L. Swiggett. 
No. 3S, Vocational teachers for secondary schools. O. D. Jarvis. 
No. 39. Teaching English to aliens. Winthi'op Talbot. 
No. 40. Monthly record of current educational publications, September, 1917. 
No. 41. Library books for high schools. Martha Wilson. 
No. 42. Monthly record of current educational publications, October, 1917, 
No. 43. Educational directory, 1917-18. 
No. 44. Educational conditions in Arizona. 
No. 45. Summer sessions in city schools. W. S. Deffenbaugh. 
No. 46. The public school system of San Francisco, Cal. 
No. 47. The preparation and preservation of vegetables, Henrietta W. Calvin 

and Carrie A. Lyford. 
No. 48. Monthly, record of current educational publications, November, 1917. 
No, 49. Slusic in secondary schools. A report of the Commission on Secondary 

Education. Will Barhart and "Osbburne McGonathy, 
No. 50. Physical education in secondai'y schools. A report of the Commission 

on Secondary Education. 
No. 51. Moral values in secondary education. A report of the Commission on 

Secondary Education, Henry Neumann. 
No. 52. Monthly record of current educational publications, December, 1917. 
No. 53. The conifers of the northern Rockies. J. B. Kirkwood. 
No. 54. Training in courtesy. Margaret S. McNaught, 
No. 55. Statistics of State universities and State colleges, 1917. 

1918. 

No. 1. aionthly record of current educational publications, January, 1917. 
No. 2. The publications of the United States Government. Walter I. Swanton, 
No. 3, Agricultural instruction ir\ the high schools of six eastern States. 

C. H. Lane. ' 

No. 4. Monthly record of current educational publications, February, 1918. 
No. 5. Work of the Bureau of Education for the natives of Alaska, 1916-17, 
No. G. The curriculum of the woman's college. Mabel L. Robinson. 
No. 7. The bureau of extension of the University of North Carolina. Edwin 

K. Graham. 
No. S. Monthly record of current educational publications, March, 1918. 
No. 9. Union list of mathematical periodicals. David B. Smith. 
No. 10. Public school classes for crippled children. Edith R. Solenberger. 
No. 11. A communitj' center — what it is and how to organize It. Henry E, 

Jackson. 
No. 12. Monthly record of current educational publications, April, 1918, 



